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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25347175">Wanna Vet?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistyBeethoven/pseuds/MistyBeethoven'>MistyBeethoven</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>"Yes, I Really Am This Pathetic!" or "How to Say I Love You with a Story or a Picture" [57]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>John Wick (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Animals, Assassins &amp; Hitmen, Attraction, Autumn, Awkward Romance, BBW, Bathing/Washing, Bathtub Sex, Bathtubs, Bed Sex, Bride of Frankenstein, Central Park, Christmas, Christmas Eve, Couch Sex, Crushes, Cunnilingus, Dogs, Drama &amp; Romance, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Romance, F/M, Falling In Love, Fleas, Ghostbusters References, Halloween, Halloween Costumes, Happy Ending, Healing, Insecurity, Loss of Virginity, Love, Love Confessions, Love Stories, Loving Marriage, Marriage Proposal, Married Sex, Medical Examination, Missionary Position, Opposites Attract, Oral Sex, Overweight, Pubic Hair, Rats, References to Frankenstein, Reunions, Rimming, Romance, Romantic Comedy, Self-Indulgent, Self-Insert, Sex on a Car, Shyness, Sick Character, Smitten, Sneaking Out, Spring, Summer, Trick or Treating, Vaginal Fingering, Veterinarians, Vets, Virginity, Wedding Night, Weddings, Weight Issues, Whispers, Winter, examining room sex, leaves</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 06:48:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>30,337</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25347175</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistyBeethoven/pseuds/MistyBeethoven</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A painfully shy, insecure and overweight vet, I find myself being kidnapped one day by the Bowery King's men outside of my veterinarian's office. Taken to the monarch's hidden lair, I am introduced to world famous assassin John Wick and the reason for my abduction: Wick's ailing pit bull.</p><p>Examining Dog, I discover that the poor canine is just in need of some excercise and sunlight, two things the wanted Baba Yaga can't properly give him. I offer to look after these needs for the pit bull and find, to my surprise, the assassin growing smitten with me. But with his coup against the High Table approaching, and my self doubts, will we ever get together?</p><p>Wanna vet?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Bowery King &amp; John Wick, Bowery King &amp; Me, John Wick &amp; John Wick's Unnamed Dog, John Wick's Unnamed Dog &amp; Me, John Wick/Me</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>"Yes, I Really Am This Pathetic!" or "How to Say I Love You with a Story or a Picture" [57]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1589944</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. One Sick Puppy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Another John Wick entry came to me so I'm running with it...</p><p>I did want to be a Vet once too. I was very young but it was one of my first career choices because I love animals. I thought having John become smitten with a vet made a lot of sense too.</p>
    </blockquote><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The Bowery King's followers kidnap me and bring me to his hidden lair where I am introduced to John Wick and his lethargic pitbull.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It's usually safe to say that when fate has use for you there really isn't much you can do about it. You just have to pray that God gets you there safely and that you won't be at the wrong end of His plans. For instance, one day, I was casually leaving my Veterinarian practice, still dressed in my scrubs, and anticipating cooking up a frozen pizza when I found my chubby female person surrounded by a group of the homeless. Generally, I usually love and feel bad for those without a place to call home and try my best to offer to them any spare change or food I have on me. No big deal; just what anyone whom has a heart and a smidgen of compassion would do. But right then with them all descending on me in unison, I felt not only scared but terrified out of my mind. With the large legion of the homeless in New York City it generally amazed me that they did not all band together to start a revolution. We'd have quite the war on our hands if they ever did, I knew.</p><p>Right then, however, my thoughts were not on a war but on a really small battle involving them or my purse, which contained my wallet, the item I believed that they were coming for. It would have been a far more intelligent move just to hand it to them instead of risking my life. A life was precious and with no way to count its value. At the same time, though, my always racing mind knew that all of my identification and some licences were in that very same wallet and I saw lying before me hours spent in various lines reporting them missing and having to get new ones in their place. If you have ever stood in line at any governmental or similar agency you will know that sometimes you just end up foolishly wishing you were dead anyway. And while the moment you finally get it all done may feel like Heaven, you're still just on planet Earth and facing yet another ordeal of some kind of painstaking torment in the future.</p><p>So, knowing that I was facing death or a very long wait in line, I made the most logical first opening battle move I could think of: I opened my purse, grabbed my wallet and threw every piece of cash or small change inside of it at them while I kept my I.D. to myself.</p><p>"Please! Please! Please!" Just take the money and go," I pleaded at them, frightened when they kept moving forward, trampling over the dollar bills like they were the flyers, pamphlets or other pieces of paper you would see blowing down the New York City street.</p><p>"We don't want the money!" one of them, a thin, scraggly guy with a long graying beard replied.</p><p>"You don't want <em>me</em>, do you?" I asked, in shock. Being overweight I doubted my worth and that they would want anything which would make me frightened and protective of the virginity I still possessed despite my age.</p><p>"No," he laughed as if the thought was ludicrous. Which made me highly relieved and mildly insulted all at once.</p><p>"We want <em>what</em> you are," a younger vagrant, but one whom was still bearded, informed me.</p><p>"And what's that?" I squeaked.</p><p>"A vet!" the man with the older man replied before they all tackled me and I saw only darkness as a bag was placed over my head and something heavy struck me from behind as well.</p><p>* * *</p><p>Waking up, I heard squeaking still. Opening my eyes, I found out it wasn't my voice this time but a large rat staring at me with dark, shining eyes that twinkled in the strange shimmering light surrounding me. He studied me a bit longer and then had the audacity to sniff my nose and run off as if I had been the one to offend him somehow. Sitting up, I brushed the dirt off of my vet scrubs and looked around at my surroundings. The group of the homeless had brought me to an underground lair of some type. The floor I was lying on just moments before was caked with dirt, hence why it was covering my plus-sized body, and there was a dank smell in the air. The sole sources of lights were several candles placed here and there and they were what was giving everything around them an odd and dancing glow.</p><p>"Well good day, little sister," a big voice boomed.</p><p>"Glad to see you finally bid the Sandman adieu to grace us with your consciousness."</p><p>I turned around quickly to see a black man of impressive girth sitting on a chair as if it were his throne. The man had short graying hair, widespaced, pretty eyes and a large space between his two front teeth . He sat there with a Fanta soda in his hands and a bag of Lay's plain potato chips perched precariously on his knee.</p><p>"I am the Bowery King," the man introduced himself, staring at me as I sat on the floor of his kingdom. "And you are Dr. Erin Smyth, are you not?"</p><p>I nodded and blinked. Apparently they had targeted me especially and who knew for how long. Taking another look around, my eyes came to rest on the tall, dark figure to the Bowery King's right. His hands were held infront of his dark suited body and the fingers of his left hand were clasped around his right wrist, where I could clearly see his ring finger was missing. Hair like long curtains rested to the sides of his bearded face, which was half lowered, and yet he kept his small brown eyes somberly on me, a frown on his lips. He was a handsome man, hulking and imposing and I instantly liked him in that way I did with certain men whom attracted me.</p><p>He also reminded me of a big black Labrador which didn't hurt.</p><p>"Oh, I see you've centered on our, John!" the Bowery King stated, following my line of vision. "Step forward John Wick! It's only right, after all. He's the reason you are here, Dr. Smyth."</p><p>I was suddenly a little frightened because this John Wick looked like he could take care of some serious business if he wanted to. He also intimidated the shit out of me because I liked him and thought he was handsome. Being a shy, overweight and insecure woman I didn't always know how to deal with a man I was attracted to and my words came out all wrong or not at all. Which probably accounted for what I said next.</p><p>"Why does he need his shots?"</p><p>The tunnel was filled with the Bowery King's loud and boisterous laughter while John Wick glared at me and I felt completely abashed as I smiled at him in sheepish apology.</p><p>"No," the Bowery King finally said when he found the time to breath. "John, boy, here is the one whom delivers the shots. You see, Erin, can I call you, Erin? John Wick is the dreaded Baba Yaga, the most feared assassin in the whole world and he killed enough to make the bubonic plague jealous. But John has one sick puppy on his blood stained hands and a fucking moping assassin ain't doing me a damn bit of good."</p><p>John Wick was suddenly the one to look sheepish as my heart sank having realizing that I was strongly attracted to a man whom killed others to earn his daily bread and I had also just inadvertantly insulted him on top of it. Never a wise idea with an assassin.</p><p>* * *</p><p>It turned out that this John Wick's sick puppy really <em>was</em> a sick puppy dog that had grown very lethargic and irritable over the last few weeks. The Bowery King let the assassin take me to see the dog himself.</p><p>"Sorry about this," John Wick apologized.</p><p>"For having me look at your dog?" I asked. "Don't be silly. That's my job. Besides, I hate to see animals sick."</p><p>"You're an animal lover?"</p><p>"Yes," I said with a smile.</p><p>As we walked down the tunnel, I noticed that John Wick looked slightly pained from each step. "Are you okay?" I asked, looking at the somber profile by my side and several inches above me.</p><p>"Yeah," he said, turning to look at me with his dark eyes. "A friend shot me off of a building. I broke every bone in my body but I'm almost all better now. I think I did quite well in eight months."</p><p>I looked down at his limping gait, then looked straight ahead of me, consideredhis words and had to agree.</p><p>The healed hitman showed me his ailing dog whom was lying in what I assumed was Wick's personal space in the underground tunnel. The dog was a big gray pitbull whom looked at me with sad eyes and seemed very miserable. "What's his name?" I asked as I started to examine him.</p><p>"He doesn't have one."</p><p>I furrowed my brow and bit the side of my bottom lip in consternation. "Well what do you call him?"</p><p>"Dog works for me. It works for him too."</p><p>"Okay <em>man</em>," I said playfully and he laughed which made me feel warm and fuzzy like a bunny wabbit.</p><p>"How often do you walk your Dog, John?" I asked.</p><p>"I don't walk my dog. He walks himself," John Wick stated. "It's hard for me to get out. I have a thirty million dollar bounty on my head and I'm presumed dead."</p><p>My mouth fell open and he grimaced. "I guess, I shouldn't have told you that," John quickly added.</p><p>"You don't have to worry," I reassured him. "I'm not about to be a Judas selling someone for twelve gold coins. Or thirty million. Inflation, being what it is, I guess. Besides, as I thought before I was brought here, lives shouldn't have prices. They are <em>priceless</em>."</p><p>John Wick smiled almost fondly at me as I looked up at him and I felt myself starting to blush. Wick hadn't gone so overboard with the candles so I hoped he had not seen it. I turned back to look at Dog. "How much excercise does he get?" I asked.</p><p>"Not much. But before I fell off of the roof, I was mostly running with him here and there. We walked here all the way from New Jersey once after my house was blown up by another former friend."</p><p>I bit my tongue on the subject of how the assassin seriously needed a different set of friends and focused on my field of expertise instead of trying my hand at life coaching. "John, dogs don't store up excercise for rainy days. You have to keep it constant."</p><p>"Oh, yeah," John Wick stated.</p><p>I stood and looked into my assassin client's eyes which were still looking at me oddly and making me feel self conscious. "Your canine companion is needing some excercise and fresh air. I highly recommend you take him out for some walks not in an underground lair."</p><p>"But I can't go out."</p><p>I took a deep breath full of mildew mixed with dirt. "Can you have one of those guys who dragged me here do it?"</p><p>John studied me and then leaned forward. "The underground organization that put the price on my head knows all the King's men. If they see one walking a pitbull, they'll put two and two together."</p><p>I sighed again, sucking in more mould. "Okay...how about I walk your dog for you, John Wick?"</p><p>"You would do that?" he asked.</p><p>I nodded and smiled at him. "For you, I would, yes."</p><p>I knew then that the solitary candle in the room <em>was</em> enough to see a blush because that's what John Wick did. Big tough killer that he was, I was convinced I saw his face turning a deeper shade of pink as he held my gaze in the dark, damp tunnel. Quickly he turned his attention from my green-gray eyes looking up at him and to the contents of his pocket instead. Fishing around in it, he swiftly pulled out something, grabbed my hand and placed the object in my palm. "Here, for your trouble," he stated.</p><p>Looking at it, I saw nothing less than a pure gold coin, similar to the ones we had just been speaking of previously. It caught the candlelight and sparkled. "I don't need this," I said. "I'll care for Dog for free because I like him and I like you."</p><p>The blush came to John Wick's face again but this time he did not look away. The assassin took the bottom of my hand in his and placed his other hand over it. I could see his missing finger clearly now, cut cleanly and cauterized and it seemed a sin that it had to be the ring finger, where the vein was was once believed to be the only one which ran straight to the heart, as if it had been damaged too somewhere along the way. "Take it anyway," John Wick said and closed my fingers around the coin. Feeling the heat of his touch, and seeing it in his eyes also, I wondered how anyone could be willing to steal that warmth from the man in exchange for the cold and unfeeling piece of gold resting in the palm of my hand.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Professional Curiosity</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>I start my task of walking John Wick's dog for him.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Bowery King was not pleased that his men would repeatedly have to drag me to his hidden lair each day just to walk one lethargic pitbull. Of course, it was John Wick's pit bull which finally seemed to make enough of a difference that he caved in. Before I was permitted to leave, I convinced the man to just let me come to the lair by myself to fetch the canine. Though he blustered and complained, asked God for the patience to suffer fools, and actually gnashed his teeth (which I had never actually seen done in person before and looked somewhere stuck between being frightening and melodramatic) he eventually surrendered when John told him that I could be trusted.</p><p>"She'll be quiet," John Wick simply said.</p><p>The tall, stoic man was standing by my side, as we stood facing the King, perched a top his makeshift throne. From what John had told me before entering the pauper Royale's chamber, the man had set his sights on moving to a much cleaner and luxurious kingdom if the plans they had been forming for months finally came to pass.</p><p>The hitman had further told me it would be at the head of the table but what that meant I could not really understand.</p><p>"Yes," the Bowery King stated, as he sat on his throne and suddenly looked far more appeased. "From what my information states, she is very much alone in our fair city. Nor does she have much of a life. You, Miss Smyth, are so inconsequential and far beneath the Table you aren't even a crumb which has fallen from it."</p><p>I was mortified by the King's statement which seemed to be yet anothet insult in a way I couldn't completely understand. It came as no shock to me that I was insignificant in the vast workings of major metropolis, let alone the universe as a whole. I didn't need some guy sipping Fanta Soda and covered in potato chip crumbs to tell me that.</p><p>A rat hopped up on the Monarch's knee and the King started to stroke its brown fur as it eagerly devored one larger crumb. I absently noticed something attatched to the rodent's leg, paper, string and metal, but was still too upset and embarrassed by the man's words to pay it much attention. He'd basically just called me a loser in front of John Wick, an attractive and hopefully decent (although he supposedly killed people for a living) man I fancied. Looking up towards the hitman's handsome face, however, I noticed John didn't seem to be looking as if he was ashamed of me. In fact, he looked rather pleased by the information that I was on my own in the Big Apple and had only nibbled on it instead of taking a life altering chomp. From the happy little lights in his eyes to the slight twisting of his lip, it seemed to be the best piece of news the assassin had heard in a very long while.</p><p>Realizing that I was staring at him, John Wick turned to look at me too and I could not dare to break his stare, even though I was painfully shy. You don't look away when an assassin is studying you, nor do you deprive yourself of admiring a face you find to be hopelessly appealing and comforting somehow.</p><p>John Wick killed people whom often behaved like animals. I helped animals keep on living because they mattered just as much as a human would to the person whom had brought them in to see me. These professions seemed terribly opposite in their ways. Yet there we stood, gazing at one another, amidst the twinkling candlelights and rats, both human and animal, with something like budding affection in our eyes.</p><p>* * *</p><p>That night, back in my small apartment, I couldn't get John Wick out of my head. I sat on the edge of my lumpy, bumpy mattress holding the strange gold coin he had given to me in the palm of my plump hand. I thought about the way he had made me feel when he looked at me with that strange glow of amusement in his brown eyes, eyes which could appear either the color of milk chocolate or dark depending likely on his mood or the lighting. He had seemed to like me too but I chastised myself for even letting myself think that way. What could an attractive, lethal, sweet and ruthless killer want with a shy, overweight veterinarian? Even if he was hiding out in the New York sewers, he had to have had better options. His expensive foreign suit could even profess that much. While the King and his men went for a look that screamed Maytag box at the back alley of a restaurant, Wick's attire, and whole demeanor, screamed hopping aboard jet planes to far away lands to commit cold blooded murder. And if he ever <em>did</em> manage to retire, his future held some big, perfect white house somewhere in the suburbs, with a gorgeous and confident wife, most probably a model or photgrapher.</p><p>It wouldn't be a timid woman who spent most days taking the temperatures of dogs and cats by sticking a thermometer up their back ends.</p><p>But he had been looking at me in a certain way, I thought to myself; He had been <em>warm</em> to me. That was something. And, at least, I'd see him the next day when I took his unnamed dog for a walk. Carefully I placed the gold coin on my nightstand. Remembering how John Wick's hands had felt touching my own, I folded my hands and said my prayers, then crawled into bed, trying not to think of the next day when I'd be walking a hitman's ailing puppy dog.</p><p>Not because I was frightened, you see, but rather because it would make me far too <em>excited</em> to sleep.</p><p>* * *</p><p>The directions the Bowery King had given me for the location of the underground lair were quite simple. Getting in my yellow Volkswagen Beetle after work, I found the entrance to the tunnel easily enough. I'd gotten changed out of my scrubs and into my off hours clothing but was startled when the vagrant, the older man from yesterday, whom was supposedly sleeping at the start of the tunnel, looked up at me as I started to enter.</p><p>"Unh unh," the man stated. "In your vet gear. The King thinks that will be more conspicuous."</p><p>"He <em>wants</em> me to be conspicuous walking John Wick's dog?" I asked confused.</p><p>The man gave no other explanation other than, "Would you have been suspicious of me?"</p><p>"No."</p><p>"Then go get changed."</p><p>I headed back to the Volkswagen, mumbling to myself. I picked up my scrubs off of the passenger side and was going to just throw them over the clothing I was wearing but soon realized that it wouldn't work. My long sleeve shirt would be visible past the scrubs.</p><p>"Shit," I said. Changing in the backseat was an option but could involve some embarrassing positions involving my boobs or ass up against the Beetle's windows.</p><p>I was about to try it when I looked up to see the man, whom instructed me to change in the first place, standing feet away and smiling at me hopefully. "Tick Tock Miss Smyth," he said and pointed at the watch on his wrist.</p><p>Having the Tick Tock man, whom I could tell wasn't the nicest of individuals, keeping watch over me while I was exchanging my casual clothes for my formal duds did not appeal to me. Now if it had been John Wick...</p><p>"I'll get changed in there," I said holding my uniform to my chest.</p><p>"Lock your car?" the man asked as I passed him. "Never can tell who might be around to steal something."</p><p>"All locked up," I said, my voice quivering as the man walked past me, bumping painfully into my shoulder on the way.</p><p>"Good," he said. "I'll take you to Mr. Wick."</p><p>* * *</p><p>"Hi," John Wick greeted as the Tick Tock dropped me off at his room.</p><p>"Here's your girlfriend, John," the man said before leaving.</p><p>I couldn't tell if the Bowery King's servant was joking or being serious. I cast a glance at John, whom was blushing again, but looked kind of excited. Well, in as excited a way as John Wick could probably get. He looked like a little boy that had just watched his dad walk through the door holding a puppy. I looked behind my back, trying to see if maybe there was something to make him that happy besides me, but decided the man was just relieved that his dog was about to be taken for a walk and was hopefully be on the way to becoming the Dog he once knew again.</p><p>"Umm..." I said. "I'm supposed to change into my vet scrubs so I look conspicuous."</p><p>"Good idea," John commented.</p><p>"It was the King's supposedly," I returned.</p><p>"Good advice to heed then."</p><p>A few seconds of awkward silence, John Wick looking as if he wanted to talk but just couldn't.</p><p>"Would you mind if I change in here?" I asked.</p><p>"No," John Wick replied.</p><p>A few more moments of staring as John continued to stare at me. "Um...would you mind turning around?" I asked.</p><p>"Yeah...right," the assassin said but seemed kind of disappointed. He slowly rotated whilst looking at me in a certain odd way; the word "yearnfully" entered my head for some odd and crazy reason.</p><p>I started to change as quickly as I could while I remained facing away from the assassin. At one point, I looked over my shoulder and thought I saw a flash of movement from John Wick, as if I'd been just about a second from discovering him doing the same. Or was I only imagining it? Nothing more than wishful thinking, believing that a gorgeous assassin would want to spy on a chubby woman getting dressed. His reflexes would be quick enough to think he could get away with it but why bother?</p><p>Unless he really <em>was</em> starved for sex or cheap thrills in the sewers under New York.</p><p>"Okay done," I announced.</p><p>Wick turned around and looked at me from my feet to my hair, which usually would have been worn up in a tie if we were back at the office.</p><p>"You look good," John said, as if we were going on a date and he hadn't seen me in exactly the same set of clothing the day before.</p><p>I looked at him shyly but could only say, "Thanks," in return.</p><p>I pulled out a leash and walked over to where Dog was lying, showing me far less interest than his owner was. He whimpered at me as I knelt down to pet him before attatching the leash to the collar around his neck. "If we were in the Villiage of Larchmont, I'd be required to muzzle him too," I commented sadly.</p><p>"Really?" John Wick asked as he came to stand next to where I was kneeling by his furry buddy.</p><p>"Yes," I replied. "You'd need insurance on him too and it could only be Dog's owner that walked him. Pit bulls are considered by many people to be a dangerous breed of animal."</p><p>"Just like me," John remarked with a rueful laugh. "Fitting."</p><p>He squatted down beside me and began to scratch his canine companion behind the ears. Becoming very aware of John Wick's closeness, his strong body almost touching mine and a certain heat and power emanating from it, I quickly rose to my feet.</p><p>"Well...ah...I guess, I should get going," I stated.</p><p>"Should you?" John stood and asked as if I had been visiting him for tea and he hated to see me go.</p><p>"Yes," I answered. "It's summer, so it still stays light later but I don't fancy being in Central Park after dark."</p><p>"Why?" John Wick asked. My mouth fell slightly open as I realized that to an assassin being in the park late at night wasn't all that hazardous. My eyes widening as I realized that the muggers might have more to fear from Wick than he had to fear them, the man seemed to follow my train of thought. "Oh yeah," he added.</p><p>* * *</p><p>Dog was a very good dog. He was quiet and also still somewhat lazy but the more I gently urged him, offering up words of praise and a few doggy treats I knew it might be difficult for his owner to get his hands on, the more he came to life. By the time we'd been there for a few minutes, Dog was happily trotting by my side, his tail wagging and his tongue looking like Odie's.</p><p>As I continued letting him lead me this way or that, I studied the people surrounding me with a suspicion I previously would never have. Everbody could be a spy, assassin or enemy, I realized and felt myself growing both frightened and tense. If you couldn't trust somebody whom seemed perfectly normal to New York Central Park, I knew, than I was probably the only trustworthy person there, walking the pitbull in my scrubs and seeming a nervous wreck while everyone else was calm, cool and collected on their respective cellphones.</p><p>The worry suddenly came to me that the Bowery King might have been too smart for his own good. For if it could be universally assumed that it was too obvious for it to be John Wick's dog I was walking, the opposite could be said as well: I was too conspicuous for it to be anybody else's dog happily panting at the end of my leash.</p><p>* * *</p><p>It was still light when I returned to the underground tunnels. John Wick seemed to be waiting for me, sitting at the edge of his bed by my change of clothing and seeming anxious.</p><p>"We're back," I needlessly announced.</p><p>"Good Dog," John said, patting the pitbull on the head, whom seemed much happier, but looking at me.</p><p>The hitman followed my eyes to the pile of clothing I'd left behind.</p><p>"I watched them so no rat would nest in them," he declared proudly.</p><p>"Thank you," I said in gratitude. "I guess, you get a lot of those down here."</p><p>John nodded. "The King uses them to spread information across the city."</p><p>"Wouldn't pigeons be easier?" I smiled and joked.</p><p>"He used to but he's trying to be covert these days," the hitman grunted. "If the Table knew what we were planning..."</p><p>"Who's the Table?" I asked him but he clammed up instantly and only looked down at me in the candlelit room as if he regretted he had said anything.</p><p>"I'd better get changed and go home," I eventually commented.</p><p>Once more, John Wick looked regretful but turned around anyway so I could get changed back into my home time clothes.</p><p>"What would you have been if you weren't a vet?" John asked, breaking the silence.</p><p>"I almost wasn't once. When I thought about cutting into an animal and seeing all of that blood, I didn't think I could do it," I reminisced. "Probably an author. But an unpublished one," I laughed as I pulled the black shirt over my head. "I can picture it now. I'd probably be spending all of my time over at Archive of Our Own, writing silly and sexually fueled stories with the various characters of the actor I have a crush on."</p><p>"Who's that?" John Wick asked and I thought he sounded a little jealous. I hastily told myself that it must have just been the acoustics in the tunnel.</p><p>"Oh, somebody from Ontario, like me. Actually, he's a lot like you," I stated. "He is tall, has dark hair and eyes, a nice smile and is pretty guarded."</p><p>This seemed to appease the hitman a little for some reason.</p><p>"I almost didn't become an assassin either," John Wick commented.</p><p>I turned my head quickly to see Wick's own head turned slightly, but his eyes averted to the ground so he wouldn't see anything.</p><p>"Why?" I asked pulling my black jeans up over my tummy.</p><p>"Same reason: Because I didn't like the sight of blood," he replied.</p><p>"What happened?" I asked, turning around, fully dressed.</p><p>John Wick turned around too then and I knew that he hadn't apparently been averting his eyes all that well afterall. Those same eyes that he had used to steal glimpses of me getting changed now looked at me with a certain somber acceptance as he replied, "I got used to it."</p><p>"Me too," I whisered, trying to offer some comfort.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I think this may be partly inspired by Rocky: Two somewhat awkward people falling in love. It also features John falling for me first and unabashedly so which is new for a JW entry to this series, I think.</p><p>I did want to be a vet once upon a time. But then I knew I couldn't handle the blood and the inevitable death. I loved animals but being a vet...well, you would have to constantly face the fact that you could not save every one of them. I was about nine years old and being painfully honest with myself. Then I won first prize at a local fair for a short story I had written but could hardly understand. I thought to myself, "Hey! That seems like a good career choice!"</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Things Meant to Fall</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Dog's health improves as John and I become closer. A bad day leads to my discovering what the assassin and the Bowery King are planning.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Here," John Wick stated one day after I had returned from walking Dog.</p><p>I looked down into the hitman's hand and saw him presenting me with, instead of a gold coin, a bouquet of a strange type of flower this time. I'd never actually seen it before but it was purple in shade, with red edges and with a strange leaf resembling ivy.</p><p>"What are they?" I asked Wick, exchanging Dog's leash for the bouquet and beginning to examine the pretty flowers as John stood there watching me, Dog sitting by his shoes.</p><p>"I don't know," he replied. "My wife, Helen, knew more about gardening than I did. They grow down here. That's about all I know."</p><p>I absently thought that it only made sense the flowers had come from the sewers, the Bowery King not permitting John Wick to outright leave his hidden lair beneath New York City, not with the thirty million dollar bounty on his head. Although I had been walking Dog for over a month now I still hadn't discovered why John Wick had such a high price on his head or what exactly he, the King and all the King's men were plotting in the bowels of the Big Apple. All I really was to them, besides John, whom seemed somewhat fond of me, was a vet turned dog walker for a treasured assassin's favorite pooch. Although I was curious about their motivations and plots, I was far more interested now in the revelation that John had been married once.</p><p>"You were married?" I asked, glancing at his missing ring finger.</p><p>"Yeah," he said, staring into my eyes as his looked grew pained. "She died months ago after a very long illness."</p><p>The flowers switched places from my right hand to my left, so I could reach out and take John's own left one. I felt his missing finger and was suddenly curious about what had led to that loss as well but didn't speak, not wanting to cause him more sorrow in the asking. Instead, I simply held his hand and stroked his index finger gently. The man looked suddenly torn between his grief, a strange excitement and something in between them both, which seemed like guilt. Fearing I was causing it, I let go of his hand and saw another expression thrown instantly into the mix on John Wick's usually impassive face: disappointment.</p><p>"They are <em>really</em> pretty," I complimented. When I went to smell them, though, I noted that their visible beauty did not unfortunately extend to their scent.</p><p>"They smell bad," John stated in apology. "Nothing smells very good down here."</p><p>I wanted to say that it smelled okay but worried he would take me for a liar for the rest of our association with each other if I did. "It's okay," was what came out instead of the false compliment. "Thank you for them."</p><p>John smiled at me. It was the smile of a small boy that fancies his grade school teacher and offers her a gift, even though John was the one whom was older than me. I stomped down on the notion, chiding myself over even thinking such a ludicrous idea. He was simply finding another way to show his gratitude for my having agreed to walk his dog for him. That was it. Then I noticed that the man's suit looked different. The dirt which was often on it, here or there, had been wiped clear off and he looked clean. Well about as clean as one gets when they spend all day in the sewer.</p><p><em>"John Wick has a crush on you,"</em> hope spoke up loudly. I wasn't used to hearing from her. Usually it was my OCD or another voice of negativity that insisted on blaring at me through a bullhorn. Hope, well, she had a much quieter voice. But it felt so much better and sounded so much sweeter than the other voices inside of my head and her words made my heart soar for a few wonderful seconds before doubt came along again to bring me back down to earth.</p><p><em>"Don't be a fool,"</em> it said.<em> "What could you possibly give a man that good looking and who handed you a gold coin like it was a quarter? You're fat, awkward and crazy because your head is full of thoughts you can't control and compulsions to do irrational things? You are mistaking gratitude for interest. Sure his suit's clean...Had to happen sometime right? It was probably bothering him."</em></p><p>"Dog's looking better," John commented, suddenly studying his furry friend and then looking back at me quickly.</p><p>"Yes," I commented. "Now if only we could get you out into the sun and fresh air too. And his Royal Highness. It can't be good for him to sit all day on a throne drinking Fanta soda pop, munching away on potato chips and stroking his rat."</p><p>The assassin laughed and I caught him staring at me like I was his own bit of sunshine in the dark sewer tunnels.</p><p>"I'd better go. I have a few operations to perform in the morning," I said, wishing I could just stay for a change and talk to the man that I liked too much for my own good.</p><p>I looked at Dog, who was heading over to his spot in the room where I had first made his acquaintance, and from the view I was reminded that I needed to talk to John sometime soon if he wanted me to book a neuter for his canine companion. The pit bull flopped down and looked at me with big brown eyes as if pleading with me silently not to do it.</p><p>"Can't you stay?" John asked, as if reading my previous thoughts and I looked up to find him still staring at me with his own puppy dog eyes.</p><p><em>"Man has a crush, Erin; no denying it,"</em> hope returned, whispering so that doubt wouldn't interrupt again which usually happened whenever she found the courage to speak.</p><p><em>"So do I,"</em> I told her back.</p><p>"Ye..." I was in the process of saying when Earl, the younger of the King's favorite right hand men, entered John Wick's room.</p><p>"The Bowery King wants to talk to you," he informed the assassin.</p><p>"Can't it wait?" Wick asked, not pleased by either the man's arrival or news.</p><p>"It's urgent. Rascal came back with the blueprints," the man, whom had looked like he was weighing inside his head whether he should reveal that bit of information with me present or not, stated. Apparently, he had finally decided that either the message was vague enough to go over my head or I could be trusted.</p><p>John Wick turned to look at me and then said only one word, "Sorry".</p><p>"Me too," I told him once again.</p><p>* * *</p><p>John was not there anytime I came to pick Dog up in the days following Earl's interruption. Whomever Rascal was and whatever those blueprints were for,  I had no idea other than that they must have been very important because John Wick's room was always empty whenever I went to it after my work. There would always be a note on his mattress waiting for me saying "Thanks" along with one of the peculiar and pretty purple flowers. I started to collect them both, like my grandfather used to collect the bands around his White Owl cigars, pressing them between the pages of a book to keep them safe.</p><p>On one fall day, I was walking Dog out in Central Park, nervous because the days were growing shorter and it would be getting dark soon. The one good thing was that I no longer had to wear my scrubs but could put a coat on instead. Unfortunately, as I was leading the canine back to the exit and my Beetle, he caught sight of a squirrel and happily went running after it. I kept pace with him for a while until he managed to break free from me and my large body went falling into a large pile of leaves and muck. Seeing Dog and his package running off far ahead of me, I lay in the leaves and started to cry; I had let John Wick down. Sure I had helped his dog get better but only so he could run away from me and possibly never be seen again. The park was getting empty by that time with night approaching so I just stayed where I was, lying in the calvacade of red, orange and gold leaves and blue self pity. Sniffling, I started to wipe my face only to find out that my burgundy colored glove had mud on it which I had proceeded to smear all over my face.</p><p>"What am I going to do?" I asked myself. John Wick loved his dog. The pit bull was possibly his only friend in the world besides me. And I doubted he'd ever want to see my sorry mug again after having lost the one he'd known longer.</p><p>"Can I have a little help?" I asked God, only to be answered when a dead squirrel was dropped within an inch of my dirt and tear stained face. I looked up in gratitude to see Dog panting down at me. "Thanks. Good Dog," I praised as I sat up and petted him behind his ear.</p><p>Looking back at the dead squirrel, I knew that the pit bull and his master were alike in another way besides being strong and silent.</p><p>* * *</p><p>"What happened?" John Wick asked, as I entered his room covered in mud and leaves, and found him sitting on the edge of his mattress for a change. It figured; of course, the day when I finally saw the assassin again it would be when I looked simply atrocious.</p><p>"Well, I thought since you couldn't go to see Central Park, I'd suprise you by bringing it here to you instead," I said in a remarkably flat tone, despite the tears I felt flooding my tear ducts. "Surprised?"</p><p>John didn't answer but rose from his bed and walked towards me. The assassin began to pick off leaves from my wine colored coat, which would need to visit a dry cleaner's the first chance I had to take it there. Embarrassed and shy, I quickly gave the man the real reason for my sad and sorry state. "Dog saw a squirrel and went after it."</p><p>Hearing my words, John instantly turned to the dog, whom was panting happily on the floor. "Bad dog," he scolded.</p><p>"You'd be proud of him," I commented. "He managed to successfully hit his target."</p><p>"Yeah, at what price?" John asked, taking a leaf out of my hair. He stopped to study it. "Is it fall already?" he asked in shock, turning the leaf around in his fingers and noting the color of it.</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>"Seasons all look the same down here."</p><p>I nodded as John continued to clean me off. His hands had gotten to my large bosom and I was blushing as he continued to take the leaves off from me even in such delicate an area. "I...I wish you could get out and see the trees and New York. The City is getting ready for Halloween...the stores are all decorated and there are pumpkins scattered here and there on the outskirts."</p><p>John Wick didn't seem to be paying too much attention to my words. His eyes were more focused on the pumpkins on my chest and then my dirt smeared face and then back to my pumpkins and then back to my face. "I wish I could give you a bath," he said, and then eventually managed to find my eyes as he made the statement.</p><p>Thinking of my large, plump body naked and on full display for the handsome hitman to view, I quickly met his eyes and stated. "No you don't," before hurrying off.</p><p>* * *</p><p>Five more days passed where we didn't see one another. On the sixth day, John Wick returned to his room to find me crying on his bed. I had already successfully walked Dog, with no incidents involving squirrels this time; a fact I had been grateful for. The day had been a hard one enough as it was.</p><p>"Erin?" John asked.</p><p>"Sorry," I apologized.</p><p>He came and silently sat down beside me, keeping about five inches between us.</p><p>"I'd ask if you were okay but I can see that you aren't," the hitman commented.</p><p>I turned to look at him while I continued to hold my body, wearing the now cleaned wine colored coat from before. "I lost a puppy today...her mom rejected her and the owners brought her in for me to try to look after. The poor little Dusky."</p><p>"Dusky?" John repeated, confused.</p><p>"A Dachshund-Siberian Husky hybrid. She developed a birth defect in the trachea. She couldn't swallow or breathe. There was only a ten percent chance she'd make it if I opted for surgery but she'd die for certain if I didn't. I tried to save her but the...the operation failed."</p><p>My tears rushed out in a flood and I began to rock myself back and forth as I bit my bottom lip, only half successful in keeping from wailing. John Wick closed the inches between us instantly and took me in his strong arms.</p><p>"Maybe if somebody else had d-done it," I sobbed against his chest.</p><p>"You did your best," he stated. "I know you did your best."</p><p>"But...but maybe..."</p><p>"No," he said. "Maybe is a word for something that never existed."</p><p>I swallowed harshly, knowing he was right but still feeling as if I had done something wrong. Still the longer John held me and rocked with me, whispering softly and stroking my hair, I could almost believe him.</p><p>A few minutes later, John Wick gave words to his own hidden pain. "After Helen died she gave me a puppy: Daisy. A boy named Iosef Tarasov, the son of the man I worked for before I retired, broke into my house because I wouldn't sell him my car. He and his friends beat me and killed Daisy. I woke up to find her cold and bloody by my side. That was her last action: to come to me. But I was unconscious. I can't help feeling as if she died alone."</p><p>I squeezed the hitman's hand which was trembling on his knee.</p><p>"I hunted down and killed the men. And around three hundred give or take during and afterwards. One of them was a man named Santino D'Antonio. That led to the bounty on my head."</p><p>My fingers grasped his hand tighter to show him that I didn't care how much blood was on it. "Can you get out of it?"</p><p>John shook his head but wouldn't look at me.</p><p>"The Bowery King wants revenge on the people who control the bounty, Erin. The High Table. They are the ones that forced him to come here. They destroyed his kingdom; he's planning on taking their's. And I'm his primary weapon."</p><p>I stared ahead of me now too. "What's the chance of you managing it?"</p><p>"Five percent," John Wick replied.</p><p>"Oh," I mumbled, feeling stupid the moment the measly utterance escaped my thin lips.</p><p>I nuzzled my head against John Wick's chest. While continued to hold me, I silently prayed to God that John's chance of survival was better than Daisy's had been in the hands of Iosef Tarasov or the poor Dusky had been in mine.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Not a very good day today. Tried to feel better about something but only made myself feel worse. I hate it because I always make the same mistake over and over again, thinking it will be different this time. It never is. And I only end up back right where I started with two wounds instead of just the one I started with.</p><p>But I got this finished. And we're promised a John Wick 5 to go with 4. So that's good.</p><p>Found out John's unnamed dog was supposed to be a female named Miko. Over in my 47 Ronin fic I'm dressed as a Miko. Funny coincidence! :D &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Fleas and Whispers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>When I discover that Dog has fleas, and that his master does too, I smuggle John Wick into my apartment to give him a flea bath. I soon discover, though, that my guest has other things on his mind as well...</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>John Wick and Dog had a lot in common, I discovered during my interactions with both males. Both weren't exactly communicative but you could tell a lot just by looking into their eyes; they both were very good at hunting and killing things, if I was to believe in Wick's reputation, which I did. The man and his dog also shared a certain soft spot for me, it seemed, and could suffer my company without too much annoyance despite my insecurities and shyness.</p><p>They also both had been scratching quite a bit.</p><p>I noticed it first with Dog, whom could barely make it through the park a few feet without stopping to turn his right hind leg on himself. The poor thing was in much better spirits after his previous lethargy but he was going crazy by a constant case of the itchies. Right away, my mind landed on the Bowery King and his army of messenger rats and the probable unseen army they contained with them as well: fleas.</p><p>Stopping in walking Dog after one of his scratching fits, I knelt in front of the irritated pooch. "Poor boy," I said, petting him behind the ear as he whimpered. "You need a good bath and a treatment."</p><p>Forgetting about a walk which was stilted anyway, I took the pit bull back to my practice.</p><p>* * *</p><p>"Hey," John greeted, scratching behind his neck, as I walked into his room. "It's late. I was getting worried."</p><p>Dog walked on up to his master as proud as a peacock and wagging his tail happily. Instantly the assassin noticed the patch of wet fur behind his pet's own neck and the shinier appearance of his coat. "What's this?" he asked, squating down by the pit bull and smelling the bit of damp fur on the dog, whom attempted to lick his master's face while he did.</p><p>"K9 Advantix II," I answered. "I noticed that Dog had been scratching a lot recently."</p><p>"Yeah, I noticed that too," John said, standing and scratching the side of his left thigh.</p><p>Frowning, I watched as Wick couldn't stop itching elsewhere.</p><p>"John, let me have a look at you," I instructed, walking by Dog to examine the itchy hitman. "I hate to break it to you," I stated balefully after a minor examination and the discovery of several red marks. "You have fleas."</p><p>"What?" the man asked in minor shock.</p><p>"You have finally met an adversary too crafty and small for you, John Wick," I commented woefully. "And if you have fleas you might have worms too."</p><p>My friend stared at me blankly before saying, "You're joking right?"</p><p>I shook my head and met his gaze apologetically. "It's the rats; they are natural carriers. They live down here and with his royal Highness using them to send information...well they got you."</p><p>Nonplussed, the man asked, "And worms too?"</p><p>I nodded. "The fleas carry the eggs. You come in contact with one, eat it somehow, and you end up infected. I don't know about your bathroom situation down here, but I also wouldn't reccommend using the throne after the Bowery King either: they spread that way too. And since the King's favorite follower has shifty, little, black eyes..."</p><p>"Great," John Wick mumbled and sat down on the edge of his bed, the same one where he had comforted me about two weeks before.</p><p>"Look," I said, sitting my plump bottom on the mattress beside him. "I'll give you some meds and tell you what to use in the bath or shower next time you..."</p><p>I stopped as John turned and looked at me with raised embarrassed brows.</p><p>"You do take baths down here right?" I asked in pity and shock.</p><p>"No," he replied.</p><p>I was about to comment about how he didn't smell bad but shut my mouth instead. No doubt, the assassin's next reply would be to retaliate that everything smelled so bad down in the sewers anyway how could I tell?</p><p>Once in French class, some girls had wanted me taken away from the group of desks where they sat because I wasn't in their clique. They'd virtually talked right in front of me, as if I wasn't there, about how they would tell the teacher that I was so smelly they couldn't concentrate. At the end of the class, the teacher had moved me to a solitary desk, offering some other story for my sudden isolation. It was okay. I had wanted to be by myself anyway. What had hurt, just as much as the insult to my smell, had been that the girls thought I was so stupid I hadn't heard them.</p><p>Life taught you as you lived it. I wasn't about to hurt John by insulting either his intelligence or his odor.</p><p>"Psssst," I whispered into his ear. "Any chance I can smuggle you out of here and let you use the bathtub at my joint?"</p><p>Wick turned around to gaze at me again and I thought he was smiling at me very fondly. I realized that, not only did he like the suggestion, but he had enjoyed my breath against his ear as well. "The King won't be here on Saturday," he remarked. "He and his followers are making an appearance in the heart of the city under the guise of a 'Feed the Homeless' event. He still needs the Table to believe that he's loyal to them."</p><p>I smiled at John Wick. "Well get ready to get defleaed and dewormed too."</p><p>John smiled down at me in return and bumped his arm lightly against mine in consent. I felt my cheeks burning again. It was such a boyish move really; the type that a playful teenager would do with his girlfriend. But my teenage years hadn't been filled with boys whom showed such playful interest. Mine had been filled with boys that hid any interest they might have had by teasing me about my weight and putting thumbtacks on my seat.</p><p>"You didn't put any tacks on girls seats in school did you, John Wick?" I asked shyly.</p><p>"No," he replied. "I went to a ballet academy that was a front for training assassins."</p><p>I held my hands on my knees, trying not to think of John Wick in tights. "I always wanted to be a ballerina. My best friend in grade school was one but I was too big to be one <em>tutu</em>," I joked lamely.</p><p>John was staring at me affectionately. "I'm glad. Who else would walk my dog for me?" he asked.</p><p>The man had a way of earning my smiles and I offered him one in gratitude.</p><p>Slowly, his hand reached across both of our thighs until it found my own and held it.</p><p>* * *</p><p>That night in bed, I realized just what I had done. Not only had I invited the assassin over to my apartment but I had actually suggested that he take a bath in the same tub I routinely sat in these days and washed by body, imagining it was John's hands all over me instead of only my own. It suddenly felt like a date but I had never been on one of those before; If Saturday was to be a date, it would be my first.</p><p><em>"It's not a date,"</em> old doubt and party pooper popped up again.<em> "It's him using you for your frickin' bathtub; to get clean only. He might as well be the big, black Labrador you saw him as when you first met him."</em></p><p>"But his naked butt is going to be in my tub," I argued and almost giggled hysterically. "Not to mention his..."</p><p>I gulped, feeling sexual stirring beginning over that one. I would never be able to take a bath again without remembering that John Wick, all of John Wick, had been sitting in my tub on a Saturday night. The urge to request I be buried not inside of a coffin but inside of my bathtub suddenly became very strong.</p><p>Grinning, I fell asleep, wishing that the rest of the week didn't feel so blastedly long.</p><p>* * *</p><p>Anytime else during the week when I went to the Bowery King's lair to fetch Dog and came across the hitman, John did not mention our extracurricular bit of business on Saturday and I began to wonder if it was off somehow. Only on Friday, when he leaned close to my ear and whispered, "I'll meet you at the entrance at eight tomorrow night," did I know that we were still on.</p><p>I also knew why John had looked at me excitedly that one day when I had whispered into his ear. The feeling of his mouth so close to my own and his breath, hot and moist, had sent a ripple of pleasure to all of the intimate places in my body. I'd never before known how good a whisper could feel.</p><p>* * *</p><p>On Saturday, I made the usual appearance of coming to the tunnels to walk Dog and I returned him as per normal too. John was back to playing as if we hadn't anything unexpected planned and when I returned to my apartment, I couldn't wait until seven thirty showed up so I could go and get the man and bring him back to my apartment. In the meantime, I busied myself by choosing an outfit for the evening. Everything seemed either too overdone for a simple clandestine meeting which simply involved letting a hitman take a bath in my tub to get rid of his fleas and dirt. I finally decided on just a pink sweater over a black t-shirt and black skirt. I never wore make-up and wasn't about to start. It would only look like I thought this was a date and would make me all the more self conscious worrying I was smearing it everywhere on my face but where it was meant to be.</p><p>Besides it always made me feel like my face was suffocating.</p><p>Checking the clock on the wall, I saw that it was close enough to get going and headed out to meet John Wick, his Dog and any parasites he might have.</p><p>* * *</p><p>John was already walking towards me as I stepped out of the Beetle. Dog was by his side and there was a gun stuck down the front of his pants. That old infamous line by fellow big girl Mae West popped up into my head but I refrained from actually saying it. West might be brassy enough to pull it off, I, however, wasn't.</p><p>"Expecting trouble?" I asked, glancing at the gun.</p><p>"Maybe," Wick replied.</p><p>That was hardly comforting but John's company always was. We stared at one another, the man's gaze a little more bolder than mine. Finally, his small eyes came to rest on the car I had driven here. It was the first time he had actually seen it and he looked rather amused. "A Beetle?" he asked.</p><p>"Yeah," I said. "It's small and round like me."</p><p>"And cute too," he added, his eyes returning to study me, making a blush appear on my cheeks and a glow arrive inside of my heart. "I'll take the backseat," John stated. "Nobody will see me."</p><p>"Okay," I agreed and slid in behind the wheel as the tall hitman squeezed himself into the back. "Are you okay?" I asked, trying to glimpse him in the dadhboard mirror.</p><p>"Believe it or not, I've been in more cramped spaces," he answered back.</p><p>I started to drive back to my apartment. "So what did you used to drive?" I inquired. "The car that was stolen."</p><p>"Helen gave me a 1969 Ford Mustang," John piped up from the floor of the backseat. "Aurelio, a friend has it. I banged it up a little."</p><p>"Hmmm..." I mused. "I wonder what a Ford-Mustang-Volkswagen-Beetle Hybrid would look like?"</p><p>I saw John Wick's head suddenly pop up between the seats. "Like what Dr. Frankenstein would create if he were a mechanic."</p><p>I laughed. "Hey! I'm impressed! You can tell the difference between the man and his monster!"</p><p>"The man <em>was</em> a monster," Wick commented, falling back down. "I used to restore old books when I retired. Someone brought me a first edition once. I read it."</p><p>"Did you like it?"</p><p>"Yeah. I felt like the monster...something created, without choice."</p><p>"You're not a monster," I argued.</p><p>"They call me the Baba Yaga," he retaliated.</p><p>I remembered the Bowery King calling him that the day I had been abducted. Actually, I had been confused. "Wasn't that an old witch that lived in the forest. You look like a man to me, John Wick, not an old woman or a monster."</p><p>"About that last one, you haven't seen me in action," John said. "And I hope you never have to."</p><p>"I hope so too," I whispered, thinking more of his safety than my own.</p><p>* * *</p><p>At my apartment building, I got out of the Beetle and locked the doors once John and Dog had climbed out of the car too. "Follow me," I said and then hurried to my apartment while both man and canine stayed hot on my heels, even when I took the stairway. I opened the door quickly and we all snuck in without anyone having seen us. Locking the door and deadbolting it, I turned around to find the man studying my private little dwelling in the Big Bad Apple. His expression was one of simple fond curiousity which grew into a sweet smile as he took im my large book and dvd collection and the many stuffed toys, dolls and Funkos I owned.</p><p>"I'm a child at heart," I admitted, shyly.</p><p>"I like it," he said and turned around to look at me. I had taken off my jacket and his eyes came to rest on my large chest which was decidedly unchildlike. His eyes lingered there and I wondered if he was remembering picking leaves off from it after his Dog had taken me for a drag through Central Park.</p><p>"The bathroom's this way," I informed and started to show him the way, sensing that my apartment wasn't the only thing that he liked.</p><p>Only as I did, I realized my ass was on full display in front of him and I felt embarrassed again incase he was noticing how big it was. When I did spin around, having reached the bathroom, I saw John Wick's eyes rising and I knew that he had been looking at my butt but not judgementally: the look in his brown eyes was full unadulterated admiration.</p><p>"I...I got the soap already," I stated and handed him a bottle of the detergent.</p><p>John read the label proclaiming Dawn. "This kills fleas?" he asked in shock. "Helen and I used this on the dishes."</p><p>"Believe me it works," I countered.</p><p>"Is that your <em>professional</em> opinion?" he asked.</p><p>The hitman took a step forward until our bodies were so close they were almost touching. He was looking down into my face with a look that professed he could easily take me down if he wanted to...</p><p>And John Wick, his eyes full of playful desire, looked like he wanted to very <em>badly</em>.</p><p>"Y-yeah," I replied. "You might know what kills underworld, shady figures, John, but I know what kills fleas and this will work. Now...now I have to go and let you get washed up."</p><p>I quickly bustled pass the assassin whom looked disappointed as I fled from the room. Outside, however, I shut the door and placed my back along with the bum that had warranted the man's interest up against it until I heard the sound of running water. Running my fingers through my hair, I exhaled sharply after having been unknowingly holding my breath. I walked towards my bedroom, realizing that I suddenly found it too hot in my apartment and wanted to remove my sweater.</p><p>Inside of my bedroom, pulling the sweater off over my head, I tried to ignore the images of John scrubbing himself clean, lathering the soap all over every inch of his body, all the smooth areas, all the folds and all the things that stuck out. Realizing I was whimpering as the body of the sweater was off of me and held at my front, my arms still inside of the sleeves, I heard the sound of doggy nails on the floor behind me and looked to see Dog in the doorway, staring at me with interest.</p><p>"You wouldn't understand," I told him.</p><p>He looked at me and then headed off to the kitchen. I followed, removing my shoes and socks as I went, and fixed the pit bull a plate of human food that was okay for him to eat too. As I was doing it, I thought I heard the familiar sound of the water being let out of the drain, which meant that John must have finished. Only then the water started up again and I thought he must have needed a second bath. Well he has been hiding in the sewers for about a year; he must be pretty dirty, I reasoned.</p><p>I was just about to fix Dog's master a plate of food too, for when he got out of the tub, when I was unexpectedly interrupted.</p><p>"ERIN!" I heard John suddenly shouting. "I NEED YOUR HELP WITH SOMETHING!"</p><p>My heart stopped. The fridge hummed, a sound akin to the jolt of electricity that was coursing through my body and acting as a defibrillator to my heart.</p><p>"WHAT IS IT?" I called out, placing the block of cheese, I had been about to unwrap in order to slice, back down on to the table.</p><p>"I CAN'T REACH MY BACK!"</p><p>Not what I had expected. Not that I was exactly sure of what I <em>had</em> been expecting. John Wick wasn't the type whom needed to call a girl in to squish a spider.</p><p>"Darn it," I semi cursed with a sigh, knowing I should have purchased that back scrubber when it went on sale at Walmart.</p><p>"I'LL BE RIGHT THERE!" I shouted and began to walk towards the bathroom, hoping Dog wouldn't eat the cheese in the wrapper in my absence.</p><p>Bracing myself, I opened the door and tried to focus on the upper half of the naked hitman sitting in my tub. John's eyes were on me the instant I walked through the door, registering my change of clothes and looking almost pleased about my t-shirt. I thought he looked as if he was thinking something through in his head, some indication from the simple blinking and darting of his eyes while he looked at my outfit.</p><p>I couldn't move, afraid of what he was plotting.</p><p>"You can't scrub my back from over there," John Wick eventually commented.</p><p>"No, I guess not," I said and started to move closer.</p><p>As I approached the tub, my heart racing, I tried to keep my eyes focused even more on John's handsome head, his hair washed and slicked back, those magnificent shoulders, glistening from the water and the cross tattooed on his upper arm. But it was hard. My eyes automatically saw his broad chest. It was just the type I liked, strong but not too toned. Below that, I could see the vague shape of his thighs, a patch of thick dark pubes and then...</p><p>Oh my.</p><p>That was when I realized. I was able to see almost everything, something that should not have been possible.</p><p>"You haven't been using the soap?" I stopped and asked in suspicion. "There aren't any bubbles."</p><p>"I did before but I needed to change the water. It was dirty"</p><p>His words were so calm and cool, as if he had planned them all out beforehand. I suddenly felt as if I was the latest target in one of John Wick's probably always successful and gracefully maneuvered hits.</p><p>And that his body and the water he had just let down the drain had been no dirtier than his mind.</p><p>Swallowing once more, I walked a little closer.</p><p>"I can't reach my back," John told me and shifted a little to offer me a good view of it.</p><p>The second thing which struck me about his back was the various tattoos on it. Being Christian, I noticed our Lord's hands folded in prayer over a cross, bookmarked by a fiery demon and a wolf. The words "Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat" were tattooed there too and what looked like an inverted cross branded over the other cross on the skin of John Wick's back.</p><p>The first thing that I realized was how <em>hot</em> it was. Honestly, if God possessed a back and shoulders it would look like John Wick's.</p><p>"You...you've got a nice back," I blathered, sounding very much like a teenager with a bad and painful crush.</p><p>"Thanks," John said with a small smile.</p><p>To me that smile looked a little like a wolf's would before consuming a lamb.</p><p>"Now wash it for me," he instructed calmly.</p><p>To try to save myself, I commented, "But you have no hair on your back. No fleas would be hiding there."</p><p>"I know but it's still dirty," John countered. "Unless you'd rather go through all the hair on my body to make sure all the fleas are dead first."</p><p>Ohhhh! What a bold strategic move, I thought. I became even more aware then of his dark pubic hair, streaked with gray, moving in waves like seaweed underneath the water. My fingers longed to run through it and to also grab what lay beneath that bush and let it slide against my palm. I took a step forward and dropped instantly to my knees to start washing the man's back, using it to block the view of his perfect penis and lovely pair of balls. I began to wet his skin, avoiding glancing down at his full ass, the hillocks of which I could see submerged in the water.</p><p>"Soap, soap, I need soap," I muttered, grabbing the Dawn and hoping if I could get some bubbles working I could have an army of them rest on the water's surface and keep my eyes from dropping to the assassin's bottom.</p><p>"If you want to wash lower..." John suggested.</p><p>"No," I squeaked. "Th-that's okay."</p><p>I tried to just pay attention to Wick's back but even this was driving me crazy! The feel of his soft skin mixed with the strong muscles underneath it...plus the scars scattered here and there along with his tattoos...the healer in me couldn't help myself! In horror, I found myself starting to kiss each one and the St Peter's cross on the back as well. The assassin's skin was slippery against my lips and I heard John sharply inhaling as I placed kiss after kiss on his wide back. What really made the man gasp, however, was when my tongue began to trail down the cross and headed downwards, on its way to the buttocks I could still see peeking out amidst the bubbles. I kissed those mounds, my lips getting soapy and not particularly caring.</p><p><em>"BAD, NAUGHTY GIRL!"</em> my inner bully screamed.</p><p>Snapping myself out of my action, I mumbled a quick apology and resumed cleaning my saliva from off John Wick's body.</p><p>"It's okay," he forgave me, but his voice sounded hoarse and full of excitement blended with disappointment. I had the inkling that what he really was forgiving me for was having stopped.</p><p>Finished, I quickly rose to my feet to see that John's dick was getting hard and starting to emerge through the water. It's tip was uncovered and shimmery as it looked enflamed and expectant. The whole cock was a red serpent in my bathtub and my face turned a shade to match, knowing I'd caused that with only a few stolen kisses to his backside.</p><p>"All...all d-done," I stammered.</p><p>"Not quite," John Wick replied. "Did you forget? You were down in the sewer too. I'd better make sure you're clean as well."</p><p>I looked at him pleadingly. "I already told you, John: you don't want to do that."</p><p>With speed enough to leave me breathless, the assassin grabbed my arm and pulled me into the bathtub with him.</p><p>"Wanna bet?" John Wick asked as he finally made his long intended hit.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I don't know why...but I usually end up washing John Wick and having sex with him or doing it in the tub. That's just the way it goes.</p><p>:D &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Instinct</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>John Wick gives me both a bath and his love.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"You don't want to do this," I squeaked as John pulled me on to his naked lap in the tub. "I'm fat."</p><p>"I can see what you look like. I might spend all my time in the sewers but I'm not blind," the assassin stated, starting to lift up my t-shirt. "The first time I saw you, I wanted you, pretty, big thing."</p><p>"That's it...you...you're just sexually frustrated," I argued. "The first girl you see you want."</p><p>John Wick looked down at me in his arms and there was an amused little grin on his face. "The Bowery King has female subjects. You might not have seen them yet but they do exist. And his followers often bring women to the sewers...a certain <em>type</em> of woman."</p><p>"You don't want to do this," I whispered, lying back against his strong arm and looking up into his bearded face.</p><p>"Do I look like the type of man who doesn't know what he wants, Erin?" John asked gently</p><p>No.</p><p>John Wick didn't seem that type at all.</p><p>The assassin looked like the type of man who would know exactly what he was after and know exactly how to take it down, earning him the name Baba Yaga; just like he had done when he had pulled me into the tub with him. But I couldn't believe he would want somebody like me when he could possibly have any woman he wanted. I reached up and softy touched his face, his whiskers wet against my fingers. "But why do you want me?" I asked.</p><p>He brushed the hair from out of my face and looked down into my eyes with such tenderness it would probably shock anyone that he could even kill a flea, even the ones he had just washed out of his body hair. "Because your kind and sweet. I read that on your face when they dragged you in. I loved Helen the first time I saw her too. It can't be explained, Erin. I live by instincts...and my instinct was to love you."</p><p>That pretty well did it. I was lifting my head upwards, my lips reaching for John Wick's, while he lowered his own, and sharing my first kiss with the assassin before I could stop myself. He started out slow and careful, as if learning to kiss again held more difficulty for him then shooting and reloading a gun. However, the longer our lips were locked the more hungry the kiss became and I discovered I was returning it with equal passion. So much so that I was losing my breath.</p><p>"John...I...I..." I said, breaking away.</p><p>He saw my heaving chest and instantly understood my difficulty. My breasts now, though, had his attention and the fact that my nipples were protruding through the fabric (which had become soaked after my fall into the tub and subsequent splashing in the water trying to free myself from the hitman's hold) of both my bra and t-shirt. John began to play with them like they were some new fun buttons he had found. He pulled and rubbed, one time gently pressing his thumb against one and rubbing it in a circular motion. This made them come out even more, something which surprised me because they were usually inverted.</p><p>"Let's get you out of the shirt," he stated, beginning once more to remove it.</p><p>"They aren't that great, my boobs," I warned him in embarrassment. "The bra makes them look better."</p><p>"I'll be the judge of that," John Wick said, kissing my forehead before completing his task.</p><p>I lived in fear for those few seconds as John removed my top and unhooked my bra. Although John Wick was used to instilling terror in his victims, I doubted very much it was that particular type. It grew stronger until I was finally sitting in his lap with my breasts fully exposed. Tears were close to falling from my eyes as he looked at my chest. I couldn't read his expression, and while that wasn't a new thing regarding John Wick, I instantly believed it was a bad sign and that he did not like what he saw, reality not living up to imagination, until he ran the back of his hand against the large pieces of flesh. "Your skin is soft and pretty," he said in appreciation. "The nipples are a pretty shade too, pink."</p><p>The tears finally fell as I bit my bottom lip in relief.</p><p>"Don't cry," he said.</p><p>His mouth traveled to my right breast and he let his lips kiss and take small nips of it. Eventually his lips and tongue found the nipple and he slowly started to suck on it, completing his work on making it fully erect.</p><p>"Oh John..." I moaned, a deep and husky sound which might as well have come bubbling up straight from my clit, which was furiously imitating the teat in John's mouth, or my cunt that was fully aware of the man's member becoming hard beneath my nearby ass.</p><p>He sucked a little more violently then, urged on by my low cries. Before moving on to my left breast, John opened his mouth wide and I looked down to see him looking as if he were about to devour it. I could feel his top and bottom teeth digging slightly into my soft flesh as his tongue met my erect nipple and rolled around its tip.</p><p>"Ohhhhh..." I cooed in pleasure, a pleasure which only grew as he repeated it on the other side of my big bust.</p><p>The assassin's cock was getting large beneath me and I was suddenly more than a little nervous and excited wondering if my vagina could handle it all. "Delicious," I heard John mumbling between a suckle and my worry flashed away, overpowered by my current bliss.</p><p>Finished with my tits, John turned his attention to my skirt. "Let's get you out of this next," he said. "Get on your hands and knees, facing away from me."</p><p>I eagerly complied in the tub, bumping into his erection as I did. "Sorry," I apologized.</p><p>"Don't be," John stated.</p><p>I felt it again bumping against my thigh as he reached around to my front and undid the buttons so he could slide my skirt off of me. I lifted my chubby legs to help him slip it off and was preparing to help him with the underwear too but, I guess, he took those as less valuable. A loud ripping sound suddenly penetrated the bathroom as John tore the panties off and then threw them along with the skirt on to the bathroom floor, where they sat in a wet pile along with his far drier clothing.</p><p>Not knowing what would happen next, I was still suprised when I felt John placing his head in the soft flesh under my ass cheeks and burying his nose in my crack. He was kissing my soft and tender folds and then started to lick and bite me down there too.</p><p>"You're...you're as bad as your dog when...when I take him to the park," I panted, dealing with my still full forced and unsatiated arousal. "I have to...to apologize to all the other...dog walkers."</p><p>"Like dog like master," John remarked, his strong hands gripping my thighs, as his words and beard tickled my bum. "Why do dogs do that?"</p><p>"Getting to know each other better," I stated breathlessly.</p><p>"That's what I'm doing too," he replied before placing his tongue up my crack and becoming familiar with my anus.</p><p>"Ohhhh!" I cried out.</p><p>Finished with the introduction, John bit each butt cheek and my bottom experienced the same feeling of the man's teeth grazing its flesh as my breasts had.</p><p>"Are we gonna do it like this?" I asked, wondering if John Wick also liked to imitate his canine companion's desired choice of sexual position.</p><p>"No we have to get rid of your fleas first, remember?" the assassin stated, pulling me back on to him so I was sitting between his legs, my back pressed against his own. His phallus was still ready and waiting I could feel.</p><p>"Your cock is getting impatient, Mr. Wick," I commented.</p><p>"First things first; it can wait," the man replied, grabbing the bottle of Dawn and squeezing some onto his palm.</p><p>John Wick brought his hands to my front and rubbed them sensuously and throughly over my bountiful skin, causing quite a lather. To my pleasure and relief, he seemed unashamed of my tummy and proceeded to wash it well. His main interest, however, seemed to be my breasts, which he squeezed and fondled in absolute delight.</p><p>"John, the fleas wouldn't be up there," I giggled in ecstasy.</p><p>"No? They have no taste," he remarked, pulling on my nipples.</p><p>When the assassin moved on to my lower regions, he leaned a little more backwards and lifted my body up so I was lying back on him with my bush no longer submerged in the water. I felt his engorged cock again, between my legs. John was careful to keep it touching my perineum but never moving any higher, so it would not enter me. His strong hands began to lather the Dawn into my thick bush, stopping to run his fingers through it. He then scooped water into his hand and dripped it casually on to my furry mound, rubbing and repeating the action.</p><p>"Anhhhuhhh," I moaned, writhing on his stomach as he cleaned my pubic hair and thighs, really driving my clit past a stage of arousal right to the brink of an orgasm.</p><p>I wriggled my ass on John Wick, feeling his own pubes brushing against it. His mouth found my shoulder and neck and kissed them in desire as his fingers dipped between my folds, the suds all out finally, and began to rub my clit.</p><p>My hips started to move into his touch but he instructed, "Wait."</p><p>I lay there on Wick's stomach as he teased my clit, his other hand finding my cunt and exploring it too. Their exploration stopped for a second or too as he went to place his right index finger into my vagina and felt it not go in as easily as he had expected.</p><p>"Please," I begged, still horribly aroused and fearing he was going to stop.</p><p>Not about to let an intact hymen prevent him from his playtime, John continued with his manipulation of my genitals until I found myself suffering the intense sensation of needing to relieve my bladder. But it wasn't my bladder that needed release; it was my clit and my cunt, filled with blood and delicious pressure which John finally set free with a few more expert touches and his command for me to move my hips if I wanted to.</p><p>And I did.</p><p><em>"Ahhhh! Unhhhh....ahhh,"</em> I cried as my body started to convulse, rubbing against and teasing the still unspent cock ready at the gate but showing impressive withstraint.</p><p>I lay on John, panting. When my breathing became less violent, he whispered into my ear a single question:</p><p>"Are you a virgin?"</p><p>I nodded my head and bit my lip again.</p><p>John held me, one hand on my belly and the other on my thigh. I was afraid again that he was about to end our session of bathtub lovemaking when instead he asked softly. "Can I be your first?"</p><p>"You can be my last too," I replied, with a tear falling from my right eye.</p><p>John Wick kissed my cheek, stealing my tear and moved his arms and hands so he was hugging me. I brought my hands to his and squeezed them too.</p><p>"You want to wait until the bedroom?" he asked.</p><p>I quickly grabbed his penis between my legs and ran my hand up and down the shaft, making him let out a deep sound of approval. "I think this has waited long enough as it is," I answered, and turned my head to its side to offer the hitman my lips. He took them gratefully and changed position once more, lovingly placing me at the far side of the tub so we were facing each other. His dick was red and completely erect as he moved his body between my spread legs, both of which were resting on either side of the bathtub's edge. Above them, on the same edges, John pressed each of his hands, positioning himself for the moment of entrance. I rested my arms over his shoulders and linked my hands at the back of his neck.</p><p>Wick lowered himself to kiss me, before pushing inside of me, as sure and steady a move as when he fulfilled a hit, I knew.</p><p>It was painful but he had already made sure that I would be wet enough to aid in his cock's arrival. Still, I cried out and John kissed me with more passion as if to give me his strength. We stayed locked in that position for a few moments and I tried to get used to the feeling of the assassin's swollen cock stretching my previously unused vagina.</p><p>"Erin...I...this is..."</p><p>I looked at my lover's face and saw the pain in his brown eyes from having held out, especially now that his organ was where it had wanted to be at last. The bullets had been unspent in his gun for too long and his finger poised on the trigger to remain comfortable.</p><p>I leaned back and smiled, trying to give him my best sexy gaze. "Go to it John Wick."</p><p>Exhaling in relief, John began his act of thrusting, but I could tell he was doing so with kindly caution, my comfort being his primary concern. His pleasure was my own, however, and I started to move against him to increase his own. He responded as I had hoped, his head lowering to my breasts where he kissed them again. The assassin's pleasure becoming my own, I moved my hands to his back. They moved along his shoulder blades and to his middle, finally finding the buttocks he was using to help thrust into me. My bold caressing of them made John thrust with less hesitancy and he was reaching my womb, his mouth still all over my chest, almost eating me alive as my cunt likewise consumed him.</p><p>"Unhhhh...good...so good," I moaned, throwing my head back and turning to its side to watch as water was splashing out of the tub and on to the bathroom tiles. "<em>Ahhhhh</em>!" I cried out as John made some move with mouth and dick that unexpectedly threw me closer to another climax.</p><p>"Ohhh...John...ohhh...your cock..."</p><p>His tongue was licking the crease under my large right breast as he gave that same cock another shove. "You got a holster for that thing?" I moaned.</p><p>"Yeah, your cunt," John answered before sucking on my nipple.</p><p>Between that act and his thrusting I arrived at my second release, my vagina clenching and unclenching like it was repeatedly swallowing John Wick's organ. John kissed me suddenly and with breathtaking force and I felt the assassin unleashing deep inside of me. Still continuing his ejaculation, there was a peppering of small kisses on my bust before he met my eyes. His expression really said it all along with his few enthusiastic noises. It was blissful release after months of pain and wanting but not being able to touch. I felt truly honored and moved to have been his first after Helen and I kissed his forehead and then lips, prepared to present my heart to him after his having taken my body.</p><p>"I love you," I told him, resting my forehead next to his own and feeling my saliva there. "I know for guys its hard and half the time they say it and don't mean it, so you don't have to say it until it's true, but I love you, John Wick."</p><p>"I love you, Erin," John said immediately back to me.</p><p>We looked at each other and laughed, embracing one another's wet, slippery and clean bodies now in a tub containing only one third of as much water as it had previously.</p><p>Suddenly, we both heard Dog at the bathroom door, scratching on it and telling us both that he loved us too.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>A little tired today and sad. Just beaten.</p><p>I listened to the song "The Rose" last night by Bette Midler. It is one of my favorites because the lyrics touch something inside of my heart when I hear them. I wish I could be love's seed. I hope that the last verse (it really has no chorus) is true though. It does feel terribly lonely and horribly long. And I'm not that lucky or strong. I just hope I can grow into a rose at some point in my life.</p><p>But anyway, enough of that.</p><p>Keanu, if I had two songs that I would want to be with you they would be Rie fu's "Life is a Boat" and Conjure One's "Center of the Sun." I wish that you were the boy in the market, for that last one, and that I was the girl. And for the former, I wish you would know me and that I could help you out someday just like you have helped me. That one line from the song, I guess:</p><p>And if you ever need someone to come along<br/>I will follow you, and keep you strong</p><p>But not in a stalker way. :/</p><p>Much love,<br/>Erin<br/>XO<br/>:D &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Not of Monsters</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>I drive John Wick back to the Bowery King's lair after some more lovemaking.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Besides washing one another, John and I took care of drying each other off too. I was surprised that I still felt almost equally as shy about his seeing my body out of the tub, our time spent in it apparently not having soothed that fear completely. But it faded as I saw the sweet loving look on John's face while he took care of patting me down with the big, plush towel I had bought believing it would be used on him alone. I kissed the top of his damp head as he was on his knees, taking care of my chubby legs and he kissed my now mostly dry tummy and pressed his face against it, the whiskers kind of prickly but kind of nice too.</p><p>"I wish I could stay like this," he finally said, squeezing me tighter, his large hands grabbing a handful of my full ass in each of them.</p><p>I stroked his still wet hair. "I wish you could too," I whispered.</p><p>Dog started clawing at the door and John looked up at me while I gazed down at him before we both laughed and he passed me the towel.</p><p>Drying John off was equally fun, I discovered. Having only done it to animals before in my life, I enjoyed it immensely more with the grown, male assassin. Getting on my knees before him, as the hitman had done with me, I began to focus on the genitalia he had just used to enjoyably deflower me with. As a vet, I had deprived many a beast of their balls but they had nothing on John Wick's own large pair and the nicely sized cock dangling above them. My fingers could not help themselves from exploring these parts of his anatomy, how smooth they were and soft like velvet. At my touch, I heard his breathing change subtly, becoming deeper. His concurrent arousal was more easier to tell, the penis in my hands going from flacid to a more harder state in a manner of seconds.</p><p>Touch was simply no longer enough and I moved the sensual exploration to the realm of my mouth too, my tongue slowly licking from the base of the shaft to the glans at the top John Wick's member. It was so wonderful and pleasing feeling against my tongue! Eagerly my lips surrounded the tip, letting my tongue continue its wet carresses within the hollow of my moist and warm mouth.</p><p>John moaned, a guttural sound of pleasure while his hands found my own hair and began stroking it. I continued to adore his growing harder still penis without words but with my lips, tongue and mouth all the same. One hand started moving furiously up and down the erection's length, the other one cupped the full balls, tugging on them occassionally, and producing a bit of precum to fall onto my tongue from the hitman's now leaking cock. My lover made another sound of pleasure, one his dog overheard and started whimpering at from the other side of the door. I absently hoped that the pit bull didn't think I was hurting his friend. If he had seen the look on John Wick's face, he would have been able to tell that pain was the last thing the hitman was experiencing.</p><p>"WAIT!" John commanded forcefully to his impatient canine companion and the pit bull stopped his whimpering while I finished giving his owner the rest of his blow job.</p><p>Growing bolder, I decided to see how much of John Wick I could take inside of me, and glided my lips partially down his sensitive tip, flexing them as I did. I made it to about the midway point when I made the mistake of looking up into John's eyes. The sight of them and his cock being enveloped by my mouth made him moan in ecstasy, his balls tighten in my grip and then a sudden spilling to claim him, his cock dancing in my grip and on my tongue. Warm liquid was unleashed inside of my mouth, hitting the back of my throat and running down it. It tasted of salt and a slight tinge of sweetness and I savored it just as much as the expression of blissful release written all over the man I was in love with's bearded face. His cock having stopped its convulsions, and the last bit of cum swallowed, I slowly removed the dick out of my mouth and gave the nice balls one last gentle stroke.</p><p>I saw a bit of semen still pooled at the member's slit and licked it off. "You're dry now," I stated, after clearing my throat. "I have a t-shirt and pants for you, on the shelf over there. You can change into them while I take care of your suit," I stated.</p><p>"You think I'll be wearing them for that long?" John Wick asked, pulling me gently to my feet and then into him for a kiss.</p><p>* * *</p><p>Dog was glad to see us both, seemingly unaware of the naughty bit of personal cleaning his master and dog walker had gotten up to behind closed doors. He proceeded to lead us out to the kitchen where he sat in front of the fridge, expecting more food.</p><p>"You want a sandwich?" I asked John. "You can eat it while I'm down in the laundry room."</p><p>"Sure," John said, sitting in a chair.</p><p>Placing the suit on the kitchen counter, I fixed John Wick a pastrami on rye, Dog demanding his own bit of pastrami, and put it on the table before the hitman, who had obviously worked up quite an appetite after having worked me over in the bathtub, taking a bite from the sandwich immediately. While I was walking away, he grabbed my arm, pulled me back on to his lap and started to kiss me again, his mouth now tasting of mustard. My hand went to his face and my thumb moved in small circles on his cheek. When we had parted, we stared at one another before I hugged him, my head resting next to his chest.</p><p>"Don't take too long," John instructed.</p><p>"I won't," I replied.</p><p>* * *</p><p>We ended up in the bedroom when I returned; John Wick had me for his desert. He began his feast, tasting what I had between my plump thighs, making me writhe beneath him and generating far more interesting sounds to come out from me than my neighbours had ever heard on any other night. Making me climax violently again, he was soon at my face, using the same lips he had used to great effect on my clitoris and vagina on my face and neck. I cooed in delight as they lowered to my breasts and started to stimulate them with kisses and suckles. John did this for a solid seven minutes and by the time he finally placed his wonderful erection inside of me again, it slid in easily due to the amount of cream he had caused to flow from my twitching hole. His lips were still clamped around my nipple as his thrusting picked up force, becoming lost in his dick's urgent need to be satisfied. Even then, squirming in pleasure beneath his strong body, flanked by his powerful arms at either of my sides, I could tell he was remaining attentive enough to bring me pleasure also. I draped a leg over his back and used my foot to rub his buttocks.</p><p>The sweat covering our bodies, which we were shared and mingled with enthusiasm, was making the bath we had just had become virtually obsolete. Neither of us cared though, my fingertips becoming drenched in sweat, as I grabbed onto John Wick's back and prepared for another orgasm. My hips bucked and it was on me like a tidal wave, taking me under in bliss.</p><p>"JOHN! JOHN!" I screamed, gasping and crying, his mouth soon meeting my own and kissing me hungrily as his cock shot off, following the coaxing from my clenching cunt.</p><p>He held me as I tried to catch my breath, and I looked up at him to see eyes studying me with so much love my heart almost broke between its racing beating.</p><p>"I'd better get going," he stated after a few minutes of us trying to commit each other's face to memory for when we had to say goodbye.</p><p>"Okay," I replied.</p><p>* * *</p><p>At the doorway, John back in his freshly cleaned suit, one that smelled of Gains but had turned out all right despite not having been professionally taken care of (it's amazing what a laundry meshbag and cold water can do), I rushed back to the bedroom and returned with a small wrapped package. I handed it to him and he looked at me in question. "Open it," I said.</p><p>The assassin did and read the box in amusement. "A flea collar," he stated.</p><p>I took it from out of his hand, opened the package and then activated the collar before placing it around the hitman's wrist, like a bracelet. "Hopefully that will keep the fleas away. I'll change it in about three months."</p><p>John Wick brought it closer to his face and gave it a sniff, his nose crinkling from the strong scent. "No worse than the sewers," he said before pulling me closer too for yet another kiss.</p><p>* * *</p><p>I parked the Beetle where I had before and as I turned off the engine, all of my questions returned as to how the hitman could have fallen for me. I stared off into the dark night ahead on the other side of the windshield, wondering if there were assassins hidden amongst the shadows or spies lying in wait behind a tree, ready and waiting to tell his majesty that the Baba Yaga had snuck out with the vet they had abducted weeks before to examine his sick dog. The world was so different to me now that I knew John Wick.</p><p>"Why me?" I asked John, who was finally getting off of the backseat's floor, the same place where he had confessed to me that he felt like Frankenstein's monster. "I know instincts and I'm kind and sweet, but you could have anyone...not the chubette that takes care of your unnamed pet pit bull. Why do you want <em>me</em>?"</p><p>He stayed silent for a second before reaching over the seat to take my hand. "You're insecure, Erin. But in my life there is no room for insecurities. When you are an assassin you live by instincts and by believing that you're good enough to make every pull of a trigger work and that each bullet will get where its meant to. And when it doesn't, the next one will, or the knife you have strapped to your leg, or your two hands. Doubt can get you killed." He brought his hand to my face then and turned it to meet his. "I love you. I don't doubt that...neither should you. Just like a bullet, my heart will find yours everytime."</p><p>Crying, I leaned forward and kissed the Baba Yaga and found, once again, that he tasted not of monsters but sweetly and perfectly human instead.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Okay. I was able to update this today! Yay! Tomorrow, I plan on working on a special fic in this series for Keanu's Birthday on Wednesday. If that gets finished early, I will try to update my Johnny Silverhand fic that was just gotten underway. After that is "Just Another Runaway" and my Matrix fic. Phew! I hope I can do it all well! :D &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Stolen Moments Underground and Under Moon</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>John Wick and I try to keep our relationship secret from the Bowery King and his followers.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>During the next few days, whenever I came to walk Dog, John and I tried our best to behave ourselves in the Bowery King's kingdom but it was difficult. We'd find ourselves sharing fleeted kisses or small intimate touches both before and after I brought the now fully recovered pit bull to Central Park and back.</p><p>One instance stayed in my mind, although it was one of the chastest moments that we stole. Tick Tock man had interrupted one of our meetings shortly after I had just arrived there, depriving us of so much as one small kiss. John wouldn't be so easily thwarted, however. As he was handing me Dog's leash, his fingers stroked mine tenderly, just as Hannibal Lecter had once done with the wing of his special Starling. The touch was loving and when I met the assassin's eyes they confessed to me that he hadn't been about to let me go without having touched me at least once. Especially since, with Tick Tock's appearance, it looked doubtful that we'd see one another when I returned from the park.</p><p>That touch stayed with me while I lay in my bed that night, remembering all of the touches the hitman had given to me since our introduction and our relationship having turned romantic and finally sexual.</p><p>Out of all of the touches, the most important one being the one John Wick had made to my heart, of course.</p><p>Not that my body did not have its own possessive desires.</p><p>Ever since John Wick had made love to me, I had found myself yearning to have his cock buried so far inside of me that we felt one flesh again. I'd wake up from some erotic dream or experience some heated memory brought forth my something as formerly innocent as a bath towel. My vagina had been chastising me for days over why I hadn't invited the hitman's lovely penis back inside of its warm and waiting walls. My hands were similarly itching to explore John Wick's strong body and I found my feet imitating that desire, wishing to touch his legs or ass during another period of lovemaking.</p><p>Only my lips were satisfied. And still they too demanded longer kisses or wanted to roam lower on the man where, on many an occassion, I could feel his own desire and need clearly evident.</p><p>By the end of the week, I learned that John Wick wasn't prepared to deny himself from that which he wanted any longer. Bowery King or no Bowery King.</p><p>* * *</p><p>Dog was back in his pet bed on the floor, tired after sniffing several fellow canine asses and from chasing leaves and squirrels all throughout Central Park. He seemed oblivious to the fact that his master and walker were sitting on the old mattress a few feet away and simply holding hands at first. Holding hands soon turned into kissing, short, sweet ones at the start, which grew longer and more passionate as time passed and I couldn't find the will or strength to move my chubby legs out the door, as I knew that I should. Not that I could if I wanted to; John's hands were holding me to him while he hungrily kissed me and I knew he was in no hurry for me to leave.</p><p>"I should go," I moaned in a whisper.</p><p>"No," John Wick said before placing me down on the bed in a movement which was both forceful and tender.</p><p>"What if someone..." I began to argue but the words were halted, John stopping them by placing his mouth firmly over mine.</p><p>That was the end of the argument for me, my body also having been denied for too long and my heart equally wanting to give John Wick what he wanted from it.</p><p>I watched John placing his body between my legs in the long black skirt and hiking the article of clothing up. He eyed my nylons leggings and then raised his eyes to look into mine as I lay with my back down on the mattress.</p><p>"You're going straight home?" he asked.</p><p>"Yes," I answered.</p><p>John Wick proceeded to grab my nylons in each of his hands and rip them clear down the middle, turning his attention to my underwear next. I turned to look at Dog, whom had raised his head in confusion at the sound of tearing fabric. "Go back to sleep," I instructed.</p><p>"What?" John asked as he was undoing his belt.</p><p>"I was talking to your Dog, John Wick," I informed him with a small giggle.</p><p>"Oh. Right," the assassin said smiling down at me.</p><p>Having loosened his belt, I caught a glimpse of the flea collar attached to his wrist and smiled at him too. "Is it working?" I asked pointing at the object.</p><p>"Yeah," he said, lowering his trousers. "No more itches, at least."</p><p>I quickly sat up and ran my fingers through the thick salt and pepper bush near the urgent and impatient looking erection. "Maybe I should check through this, after all," I teased. "Make sure we didn't miss any."</p><p>His cock reacted to my action and my knuckles intentionally touching it while I played with the pubes.</p><p>"Fuck," John Wick groaned, his cock twitching while he held my face in his hands and pushed us down onto the bed together.</p><p>"We can't 'fuck,'" I said between a kiss, the large member close to coming inside of my excited opening. "We don't have the King's blessing. No 'Fornication Under Consent of the King' as the old myth goes."</p><p>Staring into my coy eyes, John Wick informed, "We're just going to have to make love then."</p><p>Glowing from his words, my lips pressed needfully into his own and soon John had entered me and we were melting into each other on a very old mattress which smelt of the past and mildew. The hard, smooth piece of the fallen hitman felt just as wonderful inside of me then as the night we had spent around a week before in my cheap, little apartment. I cried out loudly as it was driven in deeper and deeper with each powerful thrust and John clamped his lips on my own to stifle the sound of my pleasure. Later, when his lips roamed to my neck, I turned my head and used my fist as a gag while my lover continued to rhythmically pump into me.</p><p>That was when my eyes landed on a pair of beady eyes, staring up at me from the sewer's filthy floor. One of the Bowery King's new messengers was staring at John and myself as we finally surrendered to our mutual physical desire once again after a week of deprivation. I studied the voyeur's intelligent face, his expression looking as if he was happily prepared to go squeal on us.</p><p>Or squeak in this case.</p><p>"John," I moaned and the hitman followed my line of vision to the creature in the doorway.</p><p>The assassin glared at the rodent which soon ran off with its big, wormlike tail dragging behind it. I thought I saw a glimpse of some other movement at the corner of the door, something round and dark at the bottom corner and I quickly looked up into John Wick's bearded face. He was staring down into mine, his lip curled at the edge, reading my fear with amusement. "I know it's a rat but I don't think it will tell on us," John managed to say as he saw fit to persist with his pleasurable pushes.</p><p>I started to laugh, until the nerves in my pleasure zone took over and turned the sounds into more cries of ecstasy. John Wick was on it again, kissing me feverishly; just as he was on top of me, and in me as well, answering both our bodies and hearts needs with every single action he performed,  while we stole our piece of heaven, believing the King would not know what we were doing.</p><p>* * *</p><p>Ten minutes later, John Wick was walking me casually to the entrance of the tunnel with the intention of leading me to my car too. He wasn't about to let me walk to the Beetle alone at night with nothing on beneath my skirt. He'd kept the torn panties and nylons as a keepsake, stuffing them into his pillowcase after we had finished making love.</p><p>"You're going to drift off to sleep smelling my crotch?" I joked.</p><p>The hitman hadn't seemed to care, however. "Mmm...Sweet dreams," John Wick had commented, pulling me in for another heated and stolen kiss before starting our journey.</p><p>We had almost made it to the entrance without seeing a single of the king's men when we heard a loud fake cough behind us, a few feet away from our first checkpoint, only to turn and find the King himself watching us. He was wearing his usual calm, holier than thou demeanor but there seemed to be a dangerous light dancing behind his eyes. That hidden rage made me worry John and I were a heartbeat away from being beheaded for treason.</p><p>"Going someplace, <em>John</em>?" he asked in his deep, pleasant yet still unnerving tone.</p><p>"I'm walking Erin back to her car," John Wick replied, his voice as steady as it always was.</p><p>"Can't the good Doctor make it on her own?" the Bowery King asked, smiling at me with peaceful and threatening menace.</p><p>When the assassin did not reply the King shook his head, adopting the air of a disappointed parent having discovered their child about to do something incredibly destructive and foolish like drinking bleach. And I was the bleach, I understood beyond a doubt.</p><p>"When we're this close to the plans we've spent months working on becoming a reality," his Highness stated. "I'd hate for you to lose your head and fuck it all up. Get yourself killed <em>during</em> not before."</p><p>"I'm just taking her to her car," John stated calmly. "It's dark out. Nobody will see."</p><p>There was silence between the monarch and his knight and I was sure that the King was about to call upon his subjects to execute us when he offered us a gap toothed grin. "Whatever you say, John," the Bowery King said and then slowly walked away, his head held high enough to risk a nose bleed.</p><p>John Wick placed his hand on my back and hurried me outside and into a crescent mooned night.</p><p>Our footsteps remained rushed as my guard walked me to where my little Beetle was patiently waiting and I half expected to be thrown behind the steering wheel once we reached it, so urgent was John's pace. I was unprepared then when he urged me a few feet forward and then stopped when we were standing by the hood of the vehicle. It came as another shock when John Wick grabbed my waist, kissed me passionately and lifted me onto the Beetle's hood. His kiss was demanding and gentle, a vivid display of the warring sides of the kind killer whom wanted and intended to have me one last time that night.</p><p>"I thought you said you were just walking me to my car," I accused breathlessly during a brief reprieve to catch our breaths.</p><p>"I lied," John Wick said and kissed me even more ferociously.</p><p>His body was moving between my legs, ready to take me out in the open and under the moon and I spread them farther, my feet on the bumper, wholeheartedly prepared to accept him. I could not deny the man, not with the Bowery King's words ringing through my head like an obituary for the man I had fallen in love with. Not only did I feel the fabric from John's trousers on the tender flesh between my thighs but suddenly there was flesh there too. It was wonderfully warm in contrast to the cold metal of the car on my thighs and ass.</p><p>"John," I moaned, letting my head fall back, while his lips descended on the tender skin of my throat.</p><p>He was inside of me in the time it took for me to say his name one more time and my legs wrapped around him. I felt warm hands moving to my buttocks and cupping them. The warmth spread through the skin there as the penis on the side opposite warmed me from the inside. My own hands felt John's back, comforting and strong against. I wanted his strength, wished that I could absorb it into myself, weak as I was.</p><p>We moved with each other, trying to give pleasure and receive what was offered too. The pressure was building as I enjoyed each thrust from John Wick's hips in his act of moonlit defiance against the Bowery King and the one committed out of his growing love for me.</p><p>There was a sadness which hit me between each journey of his length within me, though.</p><p>I knew that John Wick was not simply defying the King or trying to show his love for me by making love on the hood of my car: he was taking every opportunity he could to make love to me before he took on the High Table. Only days before, John had told me that, as an assassin, he had to always believe that his bullets found his target. Now he was betraying his own fear that they might not do so this time.</p><p>Clutching onto John Wick I wept silently, the tears falling down my cheeks as a more vocal orgasm hit me. It was a bittersweet end to the passionate coupling, having realized what had also spurred John on to dangerously take me out in public. I felt his body tremble and heard his deep exhalation as he released his seed deep within my womb. My vagina took it as some holy offering while some of it leaked out alongside my cream and on to the Beetle's surface under me. We stayed on the hood of the Volkwagen, frozen in place, reluctant to move though we both knew that we should. My legs refused to remove themselves from him, preferring to hold him in place. While John was inside of me, he could not join the Bowery King on his suicidal mission to take down an organization that possessed more members across the globe than there were rats in New York City.</p><p>"I don't want you to die," I whispered, making the hitman's shoulder very wet with my tears.</p><p>John parted from me. His expression was as confident as always and filled with the same love I could see whenever he looked at me. He grabbed my wet cheeks and gazed down into my eyes.</p><p>"You gave me a reason <em>not</em> to," he confessed before kissing my forehead, the only dry area on the whole of my face.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Dear Keanu;</p><p>I'm gonna probably regret this but I have to carry on with my last note from Saturday's update to AFDUBRM. </p><p>Maybe I'm worried about that new Matrix film because I'm not a huge fan of the Wachowskis. That kills me because I feel terrible writing fics of their works without exactly *liking* them. But I don't.</p><p>It happened during "Side by Side." There was this scene where you said one thing and they started to laugh at you. Not in a friendly way but almost maliciously. It pisses me off when people whom claim to be all about peace, love, respect and tolerance do not show that to others in return. You don't say that you're all about those things, wanting them in return, and then try to make someone feel small because they say something you don't agree with. They looked like two bullies and hypocrites. I just remember being shocked and angry at them both. You don't laugh and mock a friend on film. That's mean spirited and it upset me. </p><p>It also bugs me that now they are trying to change what the Matrix films were all about. If I believed for one second that the first films were about being transgendered that would be fine.</p><p>But I don't.</p><p>And, as per your response to it, I don't believe you do either.</p><p>I've got to admit that the first film doesn't even seem all that much like the second and third one. I doubt they planned it as a trilogy, no matter what is claimed. Not *that* trilogy anyway. I doubt this fourth film was planned too. I don't want it to be trying to cash in on the Year of Keanu and for you to have to deal with the repercussions of something hastily spit out. I mean, the last I heard they were planning a Matrix reboot not a follow up. :/</p><p>I've seen so many creators, artists and actors start retconning past interviews that it bothers me. I'm more apt to believe what was said during the time something was created than several years after the fact.</p><p>A person I really did like, and always do, in SBS, was Martin Scorsese. That man is a sweetheart. And I really don't even like many of his films other than "Goodfellas" &amp; "After Hours." But he always strikes me as being sweet, smart and decent. And also unpretentious. </p><p>And that guy interviewing everyone. He was pretty cool too.</p><p>Anyway, I typed too much.</p><p>And I'm sorry because the Wachowskis are your friends and it was probably just an off moment but jeez...I wish it would not have been the first time I had ever seen them in an interview. :/ I wanted to like them. I want to like everybody. However, the older I get the more I realize that is impossible and it seems a worse sin to pretend or act like I do.</p><p>Much love,<br/>Erin<br/>XO XO<br/>:D &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Alligator in the Sewer</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The Bowery King gives me a decree and I wrestle with the fact that I might be endangering John Wick.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Everyone interested in Keanu and Kindt's BRZRKR comic, please know its release has been postponed from this October to February 2021.</p><p>I'm also probably not going to update a fic tomorrow due to bloodwork being done. I'll be back though! :D &lt;3</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"The King has summoned you, vet, for a very special audience with him," the subject known as Tick Tock Man informed me the following day as I entered the underground kingdom.</p><p>I frowned and looked down the tunnel where John's room was. I wanted to keep on walking and ignore the summons but I knew to do so risked exile. Wanting to keep myself off of the Bowery King's banished list, I turned around and headed towards the King's throne room, feeling deeply uneasy over what he had to tell me.</p><p>The man was sitting on his throne per usual, as if it were a giant magnet, his body made of steel and his ass always being drawn back to it sooner or later. The rat was sitting on his knee, as was common as well. The human was feeding it part of his potato chip while he occassionally took a long sip from his bottle of Fanta soda, studying me past its circular bottom.</p><p>"So you've been fucking John Wick," he suddenly said in a manner which preserved his grace but with words which were crude and contrary to his pretentious and dignified air.</p><p>I should have been shocked but I wasn't. The rat watching us and the tip of a shoe merely glimpsed the evening before had been enough to give the true dirty, spying rat away. I turned and looked over my shoulder at Tick Tock man whom grinned and then laughed in his smug amusement.</p><p>"Better than Netflix?" I asked.</p><p>He nodded. "Much. They don't deal in porn. Especially the Assassin getting it on with a BBW."</p><p>I swallowed and blushed and turned back to his Highness. "Yes, John and I are lovers," I stated gingerly. "But I don't see why you should mind or how it makes a difference to whatever you're planning on doing. John Wick swore to you that he'd help on your crusade. That should be enough."</p><p>Snapping his fingers, the Bowery King signaled  his rat to run off from his knee so he could lean forward on his throne and glare at me haughtily. "I <em>mind</em> because it makes all of the difference in the world, Dr. Smyth."</p><p>His eyes were cold and filled witha sudden lack of humanity. He was bristling with silent rage that his followers (myself included if only by proxy due to my closeness to John) had managed to conduct an affair right under his nose until he'd finally heard about it from a dirty rat of the human and not rodent persuasion. Pride informed his anger almost as much as the crime but when he continued he offered me some further reasoning as well. "If you go filling John Wick's head with romance and roses before we take on the Table, the boy ain't gonna be able to think straight. He's a killing machine and not a lover by nature. The two don't mix. The last time John got to thinking 'bout love he turned his back on the Tarasov syndicate and focused his efforts on fixing smelly old novels hardly nobody reads instead."</p><p>I stood before him silent and steady, unsure of how to respond while my OCD told me to listen to what he was saying for he was making more sense than I ever could.</p><p>"How well do you think that will serve Wick when he's off in battle? Taking on thousands of enemies and thinking the whole time about a new house to build so you can live happily ever after? Or maybe <em>knowing</em> that he ain't coming back and worrying about how the gullible vet he seduced is gonna take the fact that what's left of him can fit inside of her Beetle's glove compartment. Or, maybe, its been turned into dog food cuz the Table has itself a sick and twisted sense of humor."</p><p>I took a step backwards at the last thought and the King graciously offered me a good view of the space between his teeth.</p><p>"Who knows...maybe <em>you'll</em> even end up feeding him to your patients one sweet day."</p><p>My hand going to my heart, I rushed out of the designated throne room and ran to John Wick, a John Wick whom was still alive and breathing thankfully.</p><p>John was reading a paperback on his bed when I came in. As soon as I entered, he placed it on his mattress and rushed to take hold of me by my chubby upper arms. I must have looked quite shaken, a trembling little butterball whose eyes were red from weeping.</p><p>"Are you okay?" he asked, raising his hands to clutch my cold wet cheeks.</p><p>"I...I..." I thought about telling him the truth. About how the Bowery King had discovered the exact nature of our relationship and about the things he had said which had frightened me. Then I realized that the only reason they had succeeded in doing so was because there was a large amount of fact lying behind his words. Knowing I needed time to think, I tried to buy it with a lie. "I just saw a rat," I claimed.</p><p>John continued to stare into my eyes, his disbelief evident. After a few seconds he flatly stated, "Erin, you've seen rats here before."</p><p>"I didn't mean to say rat...I meant an alligator," I lied. It sounded unconvincing even to myself and John removed his hands from my cheeks so he could stand straight and stare down at me like I had lost my mind. "You know...it must be true what they said about the parents flushing them down the sewer," I hastily added.</p><p>"I've never seen one and I've been down here for months," he remarked.</p><p>I ran a hand through my hair, pushing it behind my ear, and looked around. "Maybe I was just seeing things..."</p><p>"You know what I think?" John Wick stated, suddenly pulling me closer to him.</p><p>"What?" I asked, looking into his small, brown eyes.</p><p>"You've been working too hard," he answered, kissing me and making me tingle from my lips to places lower down. "First at the office and then walking Dog; not to mention the effort you put into pleasing his master."</p><p>"That's not <em>work</em>, John Wick," I said kissing him and momentarily forgetting my worries.</p><p>He grunted and kissed me again for much longer. Sometime during our liplock we both heard the sound of clanging metal and looked down to see Dog waiting impatiently by our feet. He pawed at the leash he had dropped to the floor and then up at me. "There's the real taskmaster now," I commented with a sigh but held John Wick a little tighter, reluctant to let him go.</p><p>* * *</p><p>Walking Dog, my mind was only halfway invested in the task. It seemed more intent on what the Bowery King had told me. Passing two children walking with their mother, hearing them discussing their costumes for Halloween night, five days away, I wished that John and I could just pretend to be other people for a night and forget about all of our problems. However, that type of make believe never worked for me. Troubles didn't evaporate because you willed them away with illusion. More importantly, I was happy being whom I was and I wouldn't have changed John Wick for the world.</p><p>I only wished that once he had gotten free from the underworld he had <em>stayed</em> free. Walking the pit bull, whom was still obsessed with chasing after blowing leaves, I daydreamed about what it would have been like if Daisy had never met a spoiled brat called Iosef Tarasov and John had somehow come to me to be her vet. Then I realized Dog had stopped to stare at me and I wondered if he hadn't read my thoughts somehow. I understood then that if Daisy hadn't died that John Wick would never have saved the pit bull from his own scheduled death. Sighing in frustration, I plopped down on the park bench to our side. Life seemed really screwed up most of the time. For every tragedy you could find something good that came out of it and for every blessing there was a curse attatched somewhere. It was enough to make you go stark raving mad if you stopped and looked at it for too long.</p><p>Dog came and sat by my boots while I scratched him behind his ear. I had never been truly loved before as John Wick had loved me. My AVPD had always gotten in the way and all I had ever had was crushes doomed to go nowhere for the most part. Then Wick had entered my life and I had found someone brave enough to see past my shyness and insecurity. I'd also never been allowed to give and receive love in the physical sense without being overwhelmed by the fear concerning my weight. It was just another obstacle that the love struck hitman had been able to conquer. But, as wonderful as all of those were, I'd be devastated if I had somehow made John Wick into John Weak when he faced the far more deadly opponent known as the High Table.</p><p>I could see the change in him now when I looked back. The man whom had told me he never doubted he would hit his target was taking to making love to me on the hood of a Volkswagen because he was afraid that he'd die when a war was waged against his greatest enemy besides the one which had taken Helen from him. If I had caused that fear in him the Bowery King was right.</p><p>I could wind up getting him killed.</p><p>Leaning over, I wrapped my arms around Dog's neck and hugged him. I was sorry that I never had the opportunity to have met a beagle named Daisy but still rejoiced that I had a pit bull without a real name to hug in her place.</p><p>* * *</p><p>When I arrived back in John's room, the hitman was lying back on his mattress reading the same paperback. He watched me walk in the door with Dog and smiled at me. It was so much like the life that I wanted to spend with John Wick in that single moment. Well, other than it being the sewer and the resulting smell from that fact. But that feeling was good: It was the one of coming home to someone after a long day at work, someone that you loved and whom loved you right back.</p><p>I let Dog off the leash and then stood and began to unbutton my coat. John sat up, confused as I let it drop to the floor, where it lay like a puddle of wine made of cloth. The assassin sat up a little more while I added more articles of clothing to the pile, one by one, until I was standing before him in only my boots. These I discarded also as I crawled into bed with John Wick. Kneeling before him, I kissed his lips and shivered as I felt his fingers gently touch the side of my face.</p><p>"Cold?" John asked.</p><p>"Yes," I whispered brushing my lips against his.</p><p>"Time to fix that," he said, grabbing hold of my soft pale flesh and pulling me in for a deeper kiss, an action signaling the beginning of our lovemaking.</p><p>* * *</p><p>John fell asleep holding me. I think, I tired him out a little with my passion and I wondered how the act of love could be so tender and so violent all at once. It was one of life's many dichotomies, I thought, rising from the msttress and away from the saftey of his warm arms. </p><p>I dressed in haste and placed the note I had written ahead of time by his sleeping head.</p><p>
  <em>Dear John;</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I didn't see an alligator. I have a boyfriend I never mentioned before. Guess I took one look at you and I lost my head. He found out about you and I. I can't risk your safety like that and hurt him too, on top of it. Please don't hate me too much. Just remember what we had. I love you so much. You'll always have me heart.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Love Forever,</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Erin</em>
</p><p>Crying, I ran as quickly as I could from the man I loved.</p><p>Along the way, I saw teeth grinning in the darkness of one of the tunnels. There was a gap in the middle of that cold and heartless smile, and as my feet found the strength to pick up their pace, I thought to myself that I hadn't really lied to John before.</p><p>There was an alligator in the sewer, after all.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. An Unexpected Trick or Treater</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>On Halloween night, I have a very special trick or treater knocking at my door.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Okay so today I have admitted my old crush on Gerard Butler, my life long love for Egon Spengler and, of course, everyone knows about my feelings for a man called Keanu Reeves. Are those men much alike? No, I don't really think so. :/</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Days passed in desolation, New York City witnessing my despair in a fury of its trinity of well known Autumn colors: red, orange and yellow. I could not bring myself to return to Central Park, knowing it would only bring back memories of Dog and his beloved Master. I spent my days looking at the gums of various pets, performing spays and neuters, curing heartworm and wishing it was as easy to save my own heart from the assassin whom had wormed his way inside of it. When the day was finished, I would go back to my lonely apartment and try to busy myself with getting ready for Halloween. Still, whatever horror film I watched, it might as well have been "Casablanca" because my thoughts inevitably went to John Wick and I was soon including my tears amongst the Rockets, Tootsie Rolls and bite size chocolate bars that I was distractedly placing into the Trick or Treat bags I was stuffing.</p><p>I had loved Halloween for most of my life, barring the time my mom had thought it was Satanic after befriending a Jehovah's Witness. But this year it promised to mostly just be a horror without John Wick.</p><p>* * *</p><p>"Do you get many kids coming to your place?" Barbara, my receptionist, inquired as she was preparing to leave at the end of the workday on October 31st, the last dog or cat having walked or been carried out the door.</p><p>We'd been discussing what costume her little boy David (whose photograph graced her desk bearing a mischievious pirate smile) would be wearing. Following her answer of Venom, she had retaliated with her own question, one which was relatively safe. I knew she'd been aware of my melancholy state but hadn't wanted to pry about its cause. We were friends but I'd never told her about John Wick. I valued his safety more than some girl talk between friends. Knowing this, Barb had kept her curiosity to herself, a fact I had been grateful for.</p><p>"A few kids from the building and a few from the apartments next door," I replied. "Not a lot but it's fun to open the door and see what they're dressed as."</p><p>"Even with your shyness?" she asked raising a quizical brow.</p><p>"You noticed that, huh?"</p><p>"Let's just say, you get along better with the animals that come in here than the owners."</p><p>I laughed. "Well, this time, I have something the hooligans want, so, I feel more confident. If they're nasty no treats. Anyway, once they get the goods, they usually are off to the next victim."</p><p>She laughed and turned off her computer, ready to head home to her son and his alien symbiote.</p><p>I always closed up the office, tending to the last few bits of business from the day. It was why the Bowery King's men had been able to apprehend me that one evening a few weeks back. Now, walking to my Beetle, I found myself wishing that they would come again and take me back to the dwelling place of my precious assassin. However, it was my feet only which I heard hitting the pavement and not a group of the homeless, that lived in the sewer with a man known to the underworld as the Baba Yaga.</p><p>A monster.</p><p>The legend.</p><p>One man.</p><p>John Wick.</p><p>* * *</p><p>I had John Carpenter's "In the Mouth of Madness" running on my DVD player as sporadic raps came on my door. I'd rise from my couch and rush to the sound, where I handed out bags filled with candies to children dressed up as an assortment of characters and creatures I could usually identify. I'd seen the movie often and so knew it well enough to be able to fall back into the plot whenever there was a lull in the knockings. I followed it up with "Ghostbusters," my favorite film, and was expecting that the trick or treaters had finally all disappeared and returned home to eat their spoils when one final knock came. It was about the time that the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man was wrecking havoc on New York City and I was also well versed on the fact that his minutes were numbered before he became suitable only for a gigantic cup of hot chocolate.</p><p>"Coming," I shouted, waiting until Egon Spengler, my favorite Ghostbuster and life long love, had said he was too terrified for rational thought to go to the door.</p><p>When I opened it, I was in shock to see that it wasn't a child at my door at all but rather a six foot tall adult dressed up as Frankenstein's monster. He was painted green with nuts and bolts on the sides of his neck. The man was also wearing the famous bedraggled clothing that was a little too small for his body. On top of his head was a hair piece attatched to a bit of rubber that added an inch or two to his forehead.</p><p>At that moment, I was like the brains of the Ghostbusters and too terrified to think. Especially as I was pushed back into my apartment as the trick or treater stomped his way inside.</p><p>Only when Frankie had closed the door and was peering down at me did I recognize the face under all of that green gunk. "John!" I said in shock.</p><p>"Why did you leave me?" he asked in a voice which was also instantly recognizable.</p><p>"What are you doing here?" I asked, ignoring his question.</p><p>"It's Halloween," he answered. "I figured I could chance it. Earl helped me with the costume. That's unimportant, I want to know why you left."</p><p>"I told you," I replied, preparing to lie. "My boyfriend..."</p><p>"Right," he said unconvinced. "When I first read that note, I couldn't think straight. I was going to find out where he lived and kill him. Then I thought that he wasn't a real problem; you gave yourself to me first and not him. After that, I got to thinking about you. I knew that the woman I fell in love with wasn't a cheater. Why did you lie to me?" John Wick demanded.</p><p>I hugged the bowl of bagged candies closer to my chest and looked down into them. "How can you be so sure? I've been in love with Egon Spengler over there since I was a little girl. But I slept with you; technically that's cheating."</p><p>"Erin," John stated, his tone betraying that his patience was frayed and thinning.</p><p>I placed the bowl by my feet and weighed my options. It was a short task because actually there were none. I had already lied and failed miserably. I was little match for the trained assassin. The only choice now was to be honest and explain to the hitman why us being together now was a bad idea. "The Bowery King," I answered. "He told me that I'd only end up getting you killed if you went off to war thinking about us, about me. I saw it too, John. You were using every opportunity for us to make love, thinking it might be for the last time."</p><p>The apartment was silent, except for Egon, Peter, Ray and Winston preparing to cross the streams, while John continued to peer down at me for a few seconds. "No," he eventually corrected. "I was using every chance I could get to make love to you knowing that I wouldn't be able to see you for months. I am coming back, Erin. I promise."</p><p>My heart melted like the candle in a Jack O Lantern.</p><p>"My only question is, when I do, do you still want me?" John Wick asked, his dark eyes filled with doubt now. "I may be a killer now but, by the end of this, who knows how much more blood I'll have on my hands."</p><p>His words were said as matter of fact, as if he were just saying he was going off to the grocery store to pick up some milk and eggs, but there was a look in his eyes that said he realized how horrible his confession truly was. It amazed me then how the man was able to continually exist with that war inside of him. It was a division perhaps created by his life with Helen, I understood. He was John Wick to most of the world, the monster they saw him as, and yet he was also John, the man that his beloved wife had known intimately.</p><p>"You will be getting a murderer, Erin. And I don't know if you're ready for that," he finished gazing at me in sorrow.</p><p>We stared at one another in more silence, his small eyes looking almost frightened on this Halloween night.</p><p>"Wanna bet?" I suddenly exclaimed before jumping into his arms. My own flew around his neck and John began to kiss me passionately. I felt his green paint smearing all over my face now too but cared about that fact as much as I did the blood on his hands.</p><p>Kissing the man, him carrying us into the living room, the bowl spilling at my feet and candies coming spilling out of their bags across my floor, I realized that my acceptance of John Wick being a killer came down to one fact: he did it from his instinct and he never hurt one single human being other than those whom had endangered himself or others.</p><p>John brought me to the couch where the Ghostbusters had just suceeded in beating Gozer. We fell over the back of the piece of furniture and I felt where my lover's pent up sexual energy was all primarily being represented. My hand went to the erection and began to give it a few caresses and tugs to inform it that I was back.</p><p>Moaning, John looked to the screen to see his only real rival covered in marshmallow. Taking the Frankenstein's monster's hairpiece off of him, so his long hair fell down, I asked the hitman, whom was glaring at the screen, if he'd like me to turn it off.</p><p>"No," he informed. "I have days of unsatisfied rage. Give me somewhere to focus it."</p><p>"That's not all you've been storing up," I said and gave a squeeze to his very full testicles</p><p>His hard penis brushed against my stomach, as urgent as his kisses. He only stopped long enough to whisper into my ear, "I never got my trick or treat."</p><p>"Which would you like?" I asked.</p><p>John's hands went to my pants, grabbing them at the waist, he pulled them down and I aided him by shimmying as best as I could. "I want a treat," he breathed huskily, his teeth clamping around one of my nipples through my shirt and bra.</p><p>"I can manage that," I moaned, throwing my head back and arching my back.</p><p>Lying on the couch, now free of my lower clothing, I helped to lower the assassin's zipper and likewise uncage his, by then, leaking cock. Although it felt good lying smooth and stiff against my palm, I relinquished my hold on the organ, after giving it a few quick strokes, so it could come inside my now exposed and anxious opening. Skilled as he was with all acts which relied on physical exertion, John Wick slid himself inside of me slow yet forcefully and with the confidence of a man whom knew both his body and that of his lover's very well. That was what he did, after all: know his opponent's weaknesses well enough to take them down.</p><p>And, oh, how Wick took me down that Halloween! </p><p>I screamed out in ecstasy, my heart having been so broken and desperate in its missing the man that I had momentatilly forgotten the other part of my anatomy which was missing him too. Lying there on the couch, it all returned to me as the hot, leaking cock moved up and down my also very wet cunt. It was like a bolt of electricity, bringing us both back to life.</p><p>"Oh John," I whispered into his ear before biting it.</p><p>"You feel good too," he remarked while he continued to thrust. "Even your teeth."</p><p>I grinded those same teeth ever so lightly before I let the lobe out of their hold,  but not out of my mouth. Instead, I began to suck on the ear, long and slow.</p><p>"Mmmmm," John sounded and pushed harder making me stop my sucking in order to cry out.</p><p>I grabbed the man's buttocks and began to increase my own movements as Ray Parker Jr. kept asking "Who ya gonna call?" Except it wasn't the Ghostbusters I was calling for; John was the name I kept crying out repeatedly as he brought me to my explosive peak. My vagina clenching violently around the piece of wonderful flesh filling it, I felt the member start its own release deep inside of me. We were clutching each other in our climaxes, giving and receiving within that wonderful place where the whole act became the same thing for both of us.</p><p>I lay under John following those last few spasms and nestled my head into his chest. "I think we both ended that this night sounding appropriately like Frankenstein's creation and his Bride."</p><p>John grunted in agreement. He looked down at me and saw for the first time what our kissing had wrought.</p><p>"You're green," he commented.</p><p>"Well I <em>am</em> named after Ireland," I joked.</p><p>Staring at me lovingly for a little while longer, his study led him to a rather unexpected question. "Wanna be my bride?"</p><p>"Honestly?" I asked in surprise, following a very loud swallow.</p><p>He nodded. "Honest."</p><p>"Oh, yes! Yes!" I cried, returning my arms to his shoulders and my lips to his own. Parting, I gazed into his eyes and felt compelled to tell him something deeply important to both he and I. "I want you to know though, John Wick," I stated nuzzling his skin for a few moments. "I'm not like the others: I don't see you as a monster and I could never hate you."</p><p>He looked down at me and clasped my green cheek in his hand, his thumb feeling the tear rolling down it. "<em>Friend</em>?" he asked, imitating Boris Karloff.</p><p>"Friend," I whispered and kissed him very tenderly.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Dear Keanu;</p><p>I was talking to a kind reader yesterday and I mentioned how I doubt I'll ever meet you. It was funny because when I was thinking about the note for this chapter, I was going to say how these stories are a way to tell you things that I'll never get to. I have little hope about meeting you. And I'm so painfully shy, I'd probably get tongue tied if I ever did.</p><p>Since this story deals with being a vet, I think I'll tell you about the time I was attacked by mute ducks.</p><p>In another note, I mentioned how my sister and I had pet ducks. This is the story about how that came to be.</p><p>It all started because my sister, Tara, had this pet rooster. It would crow very early every morning which pissed off our neighbours, a man named Eric and his wife Lorraine. Eric demanded we get rid of it, so, we did. My mom trying to soothe the loss, went looking for a silent replacement. That was when she saw this place selling mute ducks. The guy selling 'em said they were guard ducks but made good pets too. Mom got them, plus a mallard and two baby chickens.</p><p>Things started off well. Tara and I would play with them. We'd slide the duckies down our slide and they were sweet and complacent about this questionable treatment. Then, one day, I was on the back porch and saw a big, frightening dog. I ran inside to tell mom. Within minutes, the mallard and the baby chickens were dead. Mom had to keep them in our freezer for a while as evidence. </p><p>The mute ducks, however, seemed fine. </p><p>Or so we thought.</p><p>Another day soon after, I was in the backyard, swinging on the swingset (I was 4 or 5 and hadn't started school yet) and started feeling these things grabbing and pinching me from behind. I turned around to see the two ducks. They had this wild look in their formerly sweet eyes and were attacking me! I started to cry for my mom and made a frantic run for the porch. The ducks were close on my heels, though, and just relentlessly pinching, which you'd think wouldn't hurt but was, in fact, extremely painful. I made it to the porch steps and thought I'd be fine. Only I wasn't. The darn ducks got me each by a leg of my overalls and started pulling me down. I was a chubby little thing, even then, so it couldn't have been all that easy. There I was, halfway on the stairs, screaming until my mom came out and pulled me up. </p><p>I might have been safe but the ducks' guard instincts had finally kicked in. </p><p>After that, they patrolled our house, attacking anyone that dared come by. </p><p>Problem was, my dad ran a video store out of our kitchen. There would be customers trying to return their VCRs, holding the machines as they stood on their car hoods, the ducks circling around, prepared to attack them if they dared step down. </p><p>One customer was deathly afraid of birds and it was her nightmare come true.</p><p>My mother had a particulary irate visitor one day. Lorraine was at the door, knocking angrily. "Do you know what your ducks did?" she asked my mom as they stood in the kitchen, discussing the reason for the visit.</p><p>"What?" my mom asked.</p><p>"Eric was working under the car," the neighbour stated testily. "And one of your ducks came up and got him you know where. He couldn't even hear it coming."</p><p>My mother started to laugh.</p><p>"Don't laugh," Lorraine snapped. "He could have been seriously harmed!"</p><p>Mom just looked at her and said, "Well you *did* want us to get silent pets, Lorraine."</p><p>Well, anyway, that was the farewell notice for our mute ducks. They were sent to guard a farm out in the country, far away from people with VCRs and men in vulnerable positions working under their cars. </p><p>That was when mom got the raping, incestuous ducks, I told you about. Besides those facts those ones were far safer. At least, for humans.</p><p>I think you would have been in the province around that time, Keanu. It was 1984 or 1985. So, just think, somewhere miles away, while you were doing whatever, there was a fat, little girl being pulled down her steps by a pair of rampaging guard ducks. </p><p>Isn't that something?</p><p>Seriously, though, these stupid, warped, comedic and heartfelt stories and anecdotes are all things I'd want to tell you if we *were* friends. But we'll never be friends so this is as close as I can get. You're in your world and I'm in mine. You see, even though there might have been only a few hundred miles separating us even when this story was taking place, that distance, small as it might be, was in its way as big as the one which exists now. Everything is relative and it doesn't really matter if you're thousands of miles away or in the next room from me. Because I'm still painfully shy and that would make it difficult for me to talk to you. But I still wish, I honestly and truly wish, I could find both the courage and the possibility to and to call you friend one day too.</p><p>Much love,<br/>Erin<br/>XO XO<br/>:D &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Examinations</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>John Wick and I return to the Bowery King's lair, where I discover that his rat is in need of my service.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I was going to bypass the sick rat idea but knew, if I did, that I'd always regret it. </p><p>There are only 2 chapters left of this anyway. I'm gonna miss it. The end of my "Devil's Advocate" fic will also be posted on Saturday. The "Night Before" fic is one chapter away from being completed and the "Man of Tai Chi" one is close on its heel with 4 chapters left. That will leave 4 ongoing stories left with over 5 chapters to go.</p><p>That paves the way for other entries in this series.</p><p>I have a "Dream to Believe/Flying" fic in the works and Tom Ludlow is finally slated to get his "Street Kings" entry. I also have "My Own Private Idaho," "The Lake House," "Swedish Dicks" and "Freaked" sequels coming sometime by the end of the year.</p><p>I'm still having so much fun writing these. I love Keanu's films and the variety of his characters! :D &lt;3</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I brought John Wick back to the Bowery King's layer myself on the hitman's insistence. He told me that he was going to lay down, in no uncertain terms to his Highness, that while he was devoted to destroying the Table, his personal life was his own and everyone else could keep their damn noses out of it.</p><p>We were walking hand in hand together into the sewers, John still dressed partially as Frankenstein's creation, when the sound of the King's wailing reached us. Earl greeted us close to the entrance, a look of concern on his face.</p><p>"Did he notice that I was gone?" John asked</p><p>"No, it's his damn rat. It's lying on its side looking miserable."</p><p>The assassin looked down at me and I frowned up at him. "I could probably have a look at it," I offered. "We were going to see him, after all."</p><p>John nodded and we continued our trek to the throne room, the man's grief guiding us.</p><p>The Bowery King was sitting in his favorite seat when we found him. He was blustering loudly, demanding of God why He'd put a saint, such as himself, through such an ordeal. The cherished rat was resting on his furry side on the human's knee, looking miserable. Instantly I noted that his breathing was shallow and that his eyes were also bulging.</p><p>When we came closer, the monarch looked up at us and scowled. "Who the hell are you supposed to be, John Wick? Frankenstein or something?"</p><p>"His monster," Wick corrected.</p><p>"Well, while you two were out trick or treating, behind my back, I might add, Ricco here has been close to death..."</p><p>"Let me see him," I said, letting go of John's hand to go and take the rat from the Bowery King. He had scooped Ricco up so gently in his hands that it was touching in its way. The King's love for the creature, which had only started for personal gain, was now obvious and could not be doubted.</p><p>Examining the fairly big rodent, and asking some questions to his human companion, I soon discovered that it was what I had feared. "Something is lodged in his throat," I commented. "It's damaging his trachea."</p><p>"Well, can you fix it, Vet?"</p><p>I looked to the dirty sewer floor remembering the Dusky I had failed to save weeks before. I hadn't performed any surgery on anything remotely similar since. The thought terrified me. Then I felt two strong hands on my shoulders. A body possessing the same strength soon pressed in close behind me and I knew that John Wick was there supporting me and telling me that I had the knowledge and power to save the rats life, even if I had no faith in my ability myself.</p><p>And, in doing so, I could potentially earn the King's blessing too.</p><p>"I can try," I vowed and took John Wick's hand.</p><p>* * *</p><p>Ricco was taken to my practice, where I could better perform the surgery, and John accompanied me. Dog came too and kept looking at the rat in something close to sympathetic curiosity. John waited in the examing room while I did what I had spent years studying for. It seemed to be a sucess but as I placed the little guy in his cage, I said a prayer knowing that you could never tell for sure. Sometimes things looked promising and then took quick turns for the worse. It depended greatly on factors you could never see with the eyes or under microscopes. A lot of it relied on the perseverence of the animal and I comforted myself with the fact that if Ricco could put up with the Bowery King he must be one resilient, patient and <em>enduring</em> rodent.</p><p>When I returned to my new fiance, he was sitting in a chair displaying his own patience. Dog was sitting by his feet looking worried that he was next.</p><p>"Hey," John greeted. "How'd it go?"</p><p>"Looks okay for now."</p><p>"What had it eaten?"</p><p>I held up what was apparently a hand from a watch.</p><p>"Tick Tock Man," John grunted.</p><p>"Do you think it was an accident or an assassination attempt?" I inquired with genuine curiosity.</p><p>"Who knows. So, what do we do now?" the assassin asked.</p><p>"Wait," I said with a shrug. "Any suggestions on how to <em>kill</em> time, Mr. Assassin?"</p><p>John smiled at my joke. His eyes drifted to the examination table in the center of the room. "How about a little check up?" he suggested.</p><p>I looked to Dog. "I don't think he looks up to it," I remarked in pity.</p><p>"I wasn't talking about him," John Wick said, taking off his Halloween costume. I watched him quickly undressing before sitting up on the table for me to examine him.</p><p>Smiling shyly, I walked over to the handsome, whom was wearing absolutely nothing but some remnants of his face paint. I began to wipe it off from his face with the edge of my lab coat. "Well, you <em>do</em> look a little green," I teased.</p><p>"Can you help me, Doc?" he asked. </p><p>"Let's see; I'd better check you out elsewhere," I nodded, my hands going to his lap. Carefully but sensually, I grabbed his balls and began to fondle them in a way that mimicked an examination but also was sexually manipulating them at the same time. John Wick grunted in approval and his cock started to swell further showing his pleasure at my bedside manner. "I don't feel anything amiss," I commented. "Good size, healthy texture, full in the way that they should be..."</p><p>The penis was becoming a tower above them, filling with blood from my fingers stimulation of the sack below. "Now this is a good sign," I said grabbing the erection now and giving it a few lusty tugs. "Your dick is responding as it should be. You're obviously fine stud material, Mr. Wick."</p><p>John raised an eyebrow, while my palm continued to run up and down his red length. "I'm not looking to do that quite. But I am very interested in breeding."</p><p>"Is that so?" I asked, giving the balls a playful squeeze and stopping to smear some of the appearing precum over the shaft. "Any idea of whom the lucky choice of mate will be."</p><p>Arms went to my waist, as hands crept to my back, pulling me closer towards him. "She's a sweet, quiet female," he commented. "Lovely curled hair, close to a cocker spaniel's." His hands moved lower to my buttocks and he cupped them in lusty appreciation. "And she's soft. And quite a handful."</p><p>"Do you think she'll provide you with the litter you desire?" I asked breathlessly, becoming even more turned on as my lips hovered close to his.</p><p>"Yes, but the fun will really be in the <em>trying</em>."</p><p>Our lips met hungrily and John Wick's tongue pressed against mine, both of them entwining. I moaned, losing my breath and felt more precum falling between my fingers and running down the back of my hand. "I'm not finished the examination," I said, pulling away and feeling John's lips on my cheek.</p><p>"You aren't?" he mumbled, kissing me some more.</p><p>"No," I said, his lips going to my throat as I threw my head back.</p><p>"Mmmmm..." my lover sounded.</p><p>Smoothly careening my head, I kissed John's naked shoulder and began the descent of my head down his similarly exposed body. My lips explored his chest and the large scar on his stomach, stopping to lick it all the way down. John Wick moaned in pleasure and parted his legs in anticipation as my head dipped lower until I was on my knees between them. The balls remained in my one exploring hand, the shaft of the cock in the other,  while my lips wrapped around the head of the dripping phallus. I looked up to see the man throwing his head back in ecstasy and breathing in deeply as I suckled and licked away at his pulsing organ. Liquid filled my mouth, a welcome return of a taste I had grown accustomed to. I moved my lips closer to my sliding fist and knew John was extremely close; his whole body and the sounds he was making gave him away.</p><p>Our eyes suddenly met, and John looked down on me with his penis buried about halfway inside of my mouth. The sight and my eyes did it for him. He moaned loud enough to disturb Dog from his sleep.</p><p>"I'm coming," he warned, about the time I felt his cock and balls giving me the tell tale signs.</p><p>As he orgasmed, I swallowed his seed ravenously, relishing its journey down to my stomach which had been starved of it for too long. Breathing heavily, John watched me slipping my head off from his spent organ.</p><p>"You give a good examination," he commented. "But now it's my turn."</p><p>"Do you have a license?" I asked, licking cum off of my lips.</p><p>"No," the hitman answered, hopping down. "But believe me you won't be complaining when I get through with you."</p><p>John lifted me to his former place on the table. My clit was throbbing pleasantly as he lay me down and started to undress me slowly. My scrub bottoms were the first item discarded,  along with my panties and John Wick noticed instantly the trail of cream painting my inner thighs. He placed some on his fingers and licked it off before grabbing a handful of my mound.</p><p>"Ooohhhhh..." I cooed in pleasure.</p><p>Eagerly, John's fingers went to work removing my coat and the scrub top underneath it and I moved appropriately to aid him.</p><p>He unhooked my bra and threw it on to the counter, where it became drapped over the long faucet by the sink. I was the one now lying freshly naked on the examining table. It was a little small but I was too turned on to exactly care.</p><p>John Wick cupped my large breasts in his hands and squeezed them, digging his fingers in deep enough to create a surge of sensation but not far enough for it to be unpleasant. "Nice breasts," he commented. "Good to feed any offspring," he commented. "I should check though just to be sure.</p><p>He kissed the areola before his lips wrapped around one of my nipples and he sucked on it slowly. I gasped as he started rubbing my other nipple while he brought his tongue into the examination, licking my tit as it was tingling and being made to pop out.</p><p>I was making small and not so small cries as the hitman continued his manipulation of my chest, never giving either breast a moment's rest,  but his mouth and hands always at work on them in some stimulating fashion.</p><p>Pulling his head back, John gave both nips a good massage, rubbing his spit into them before bringing his examination lower on my exposed body.</p><p>His hand ran to my belly and I still squirmed in embarrassment at it being so round and on display in front of him in the full light of the examining room. "It's too big," I commented.</p><p>"It doesn't bother me; it shouldn't bother you," he commented and kissed it, simultaneously caressing it lovingly.</p><p>Coming to my legs, John Wick stood at the end of the table and spread my legs. I looked down through them, over my breasts and stomach at him, feeling my clit twitching wildly every few seconds as liquid was dripping down from my cunt to my perineum.</p><p>"Now this looks very healthy," he commented, bringing his hand to my folds and running his finger up to the nub. "Nice red color brought on by arousal...plenty of fluid to make entry smooth and effortless."</p><p>He removed his cream coated finger and placed it inside of his mouth. "Seems good...but I need a larger sample," he remarked before placing his head between my thighs. Delightfully, he began to collect the substance straight from the source, bringing it directly to his tongue.</p><p>I vocalized my pleasure while the hitman tasted me, letting his tongue lick up the fluid until he found my erect bud. Kissing it several times, John Wick then took it within his mouth and worked it as aptly as he had my still erect teats. My cries grew louder, disturbing the pit bull even more until he started to bark.</p><p>"Quiet," John removed his head long enough from me to instruct the canine. He quickly looked at me and clarified, "Him, not you."</p><p>"I couldn't be if I wanted to," I mumbled, breathlessly, before Wick returned his face to my labia.</p><p>His tongue crept up my cunt while his hands crawled towards my breasts and started to cup and please them again. I was crying and just a regular mess from his touch. My nipples were tingling, my clitoris pounding violently and my cunt clenching around his tongue.</p><p>"Ahhh...ohhhh...Jo-John...Ahh...AHHHH!" I screamed in a powerful orgasm which John lifted his head to enjoy seeing the tail end of written on my face.</p><p>"I'd say you're better than fine, Erin," he gave me his diagnosis.</p><p>Stepping to my side, though, I saw that the man was sporting another healthy erection he needed to be cured of.</p><p>"On the table," I moaned, rolling off of it. "Lie down," I instructed.</p><p>My hitman fiance followed his Doctor's orders and I quickly climbed on top, straddling him. I lowered myself on to the swollen cock,  giving it a perscription of my still very wet cunt. John watched me impaled on him and grabbed my tits once more while I began to grind and bounce up and down on the angry dick buried inside of me. I could feel every inch of it sliding deliciously up my canal and it was clear that my lover was basking in the accompanying feeling of my walls rubbing up and down along the flesh of his penis. I gazed down at lust and pleasure betrayed on his usually stoic face.</p><p>We were both making the office a loud and noisy place with our exclamations of riotous bliss and Dog lay on the floor covering his ears.</p><p>I was coming again an act preceeding John's forcefully ejaculation and I bucked my second orgasm, moaning out his name repeatedly while he tugged on my nipples.</p><p>Incredibly exhausted, I lay down on the sweat covered John Wick and kissed his salty chest. "I love you," I whispered, feeling cum and cream oozing out from my very pleased vagina.</p><p>"I love you too," John said, twirling a strand of my hair around the same finger which had traced my lower slit and been coated in cream.</p><p>We fell asleep like that, on the small examining table, Halloween having been eventful but incredibly satisfying.</p><p>* * *</p><p>In the morning, both John and I awoke to the sound of the examining room door opening. We looked up in unison to see the startled look of Barbara taking in the sight of her chubby boss lying nude on top of a man whom was also similarly not wearing anything. The secretary looked at the discarded clothing on the floor, the scrubs and the pieces from the Frankenstein's monster costume.</p><p>I was blushing and still trying to figure out what to say when she looked at John and then at me and smiled in amusement. "Well, you look like you did well for yourself. All I got was the packages of Sunmaid raisins that my son didn't want."</p><p>She quickly shut the door, giving John and myself enough privacy to begin to laugh as we fell into each other's kiss.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Dear Keanu;</p><p>That was also going to include a dig at those Kerr's Molasses Kisses but I wasn't sure if they had them in the States. Do you remember those? Did you like them? From what I hear, they were always the last candy left in children's trick or treat bags. They were always left in mine too...but I don't mind 'em so much now.</p><p>Okay, so I promised to tell you some of my animal stories here...</p><p>What's another one.</p><p>When I was really young I had a bunny rabbit. I named her after my Cabbage Patch Kid. I wasn't exactly creative with names back then. My sister had a guinea pig named G.P. after the one on that old kids' show so I called mine P.P. :/  </p><p>Well this bunny, we'll call her TM for short because her name was long and ridiculous, was large and white. She had a massive double chin and I loved her so much. She would always get pregnant by her mate. But he would always kill the babies. I remember, once, going into the basement where they were kept sometimes and seeing the floor covered in the bodies of poor baby bunnies. That was traumatizing.</p><p>Well, finally, TM had had enough of it; she escaped. One day, I saw her across the street munching on the neighbour's lawn. Except she wasn't alone! She had with her about five baby bunnies! We went to try to catch her but she was gone.</p><p>A few days later, my mom opened the main door and what should be there but the five bunnies! TM had left them at our doorstep to look after. I guess, she thought we had done pretty okay by her so she could trust us with them.</p><p>Or she just got tired of them. :/</p><p>Probably both.</p><p>TM never came back though. I often wonder what happened to her because I did love her. But it probably wasn't good so I should be grateful that I don't know. But I am happy she was free, at least.</p><p>Funnily enough, about thirty five years later a similar incident occurred. My sister and I took in a kitten on our street that a feral cat named Button Eyes had rejected. When my sister went and fetched the little guy from his home under the neighbour's porch, Button Eyes saw her with her abandoned son.</p><p>A few days later, on our porch she left her other 3 kittens! :O</p><p>I guess, we're looked on as good foster mommies. We couldn't take those ones though. We contacted a local cat charity and they wouldn't collect them at that time, saying that they spit. Can you imagine, two grown women afraid of three tiny kittens just because they spit? Our little guy spit all the time and I thought it was hilarious!</p><p>Eventually Button Eyes came and collected her brood and the charity took the kittens months later but not before two of them got pregnant. :/ I think, personally, that putting up with a little spit is easier than getting three cats and their litters spayed and neutered. It sure costs less!</p><p>Anyway, those are the pet tales for "Wanna Vet" this time.</p><p>Speaking of spit, though, I wish I could exchange some with you, Keanu. Sigh.</p><p>Much love,<br/>Erin<br/>XO XO<br/>:D &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Unleashing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>John Wick and I are told that the long planned coup against the High Table begins the next morning. However, the Bowery King helps John and I share one last special night together first.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Gah! My eyes are still leaking from the CPAP machine. Writing this today was hard because I couldn't see well! Not sure if I'll be updating anything tomorrow with my eyes still misbehaving. Hopefully, I will, but I won't promise anything. Glad I got this done though! :D &lt;3</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ricco suvived the surgery.</p><p>A few days later, I was able to return him to the Bowery King as bright eyed and bushy tailed as before. Okay. So J.K. Rowling got it right: a rat's tail would always look more like a giant worm.</p><p>In those few days and nights, I was allowed back in the King's lair and I was also able to enjoy John Wick's company, whenever he wasn't off plotting to overthrow the Table, that was.</p><p>Now seeing his favoured rodent subject returned, his Highness' face broke into a large gap toothed grin and he let the creature grasp onto his arm, while he cooed over it like a proud parent would do with their offspring. "How can I ever repay you, Vet?" the King inquired.</p><p>"Let her stay with me," John Wick answered for the both of us, reading my mind.</p><p>The Bowery King shook his head. "I'm sorry, John," he apologized and from what I could tell it was sincere. "Tomorrow morning, we start our little war. We relocate and scatter. That way, if the Table finds one, they won't find us all. But you know that already. We've been over it damn well enough."</p><p>John Wick looked at the man and then back to me with a look that was resolute yet desperate in his eyes. "This one night then?" the assassin asked, his eyes never leaving my face.</p><p>"Fine," the Bowery King consented.</p><p>"But first you can help us get married," the assassin added and my mouth opened in surprise.</p><p>"He can do that?" I asked.</p><p>"My dear, woman," the Bowery King chimed in. "I am a Reverend to my flock, a Minister to the people that the city has forgotten. I can do that <em>and</em> have the files all legalized while you two are doing the deed to consumate the whole thing.</p><p>I looked to John and smiled as he smiled down at me in return.</p><p>The Bowery King moved his arms and Ricco scurried up to his shoulder, in time to avoid its master clapping his hands loudly together. "LISTEN UP, MY FOLLOWERS!" the Monarch boomed, his voice traveling through every tunnel in the sewers underneath New York City. "WE'RE GONNA HAVE US A WEDDING! THE GREAT BABA YAGA, HERE IS GONNA MARRY THE DOGWALKER AND I NEED A BUNCH OF WITNESSES AND PEOPLE TO HELP ME OFFICIATE IT!"</p><p>His followers were gathering en masse and I felt my shyness growing to epic porportions. John saw it also and pulled me over, nearer to the wall, shielding me with his body.</p><p>"Sorry," he said. </p><p>I peeked past him to see what looked like all of the homeless, vagrants, derelicts and forgotten of the city listening to their king, as well as glancing over at us in curiosity. Seeing the legion, I suddenly relaxed a little knowing, at least, that the army that the King and John were bringing with them in their planned revolution was not small but frighteningly large.</p><p>At the same time, my heart broke over that fact too.</p><p>"It's okay," I whispered and smiled shyly up at my bearded assassin groom-to-be.</p><p>"But this isn't how it should be," my man further argued. "This is a sewer and not a church. And these are strangers not family."</p><p>"Right now they are <em>your</em> family, John Wick," I said, taking hold of his hand and squeezing it. "You've spent months with them, healing and surviving."</p><p>"Only because we want the same goal," John stated. "The destruction of the Table. But, like with the King, we don't always get along."</p><p>"Neither do families," I told him, thinking of my own relationship with my sister, whom I loved, but whom could make me feel small and horrible sometimes. "So,now, they are your family. And mine too because of it."</p><p>The hitman's eyes gazed at me in absolute love and fondness and he touched my cheek, his hand warm despite the coolness of the sewer in November. We lowered our eyes as we both heard a sound and saw Dog having appeared to sit by his master's feet.</p><p>"Looks like my best man just showed," John Wick commented.</p><p>"He's looking very handsome," I remarked.</p><p>"Do I need to be jealous?" John asked.</p><p>"Never," I said and kissed the human male passionately.</p><p>"Save it for the end of the ceremony," the Bowery King shouted at us. "We gotta get you two hitched so you can move on to the honeymoon before tomorrow."</p><p>He ushered us forward but his reminder of what the morning's arrival heralded caused a sorrow to claim my heart. Sensing this, John Wick kissed the top of my head, trying to offer some strength and comfort.</p><p>We stood before the Bowery King and his gathered crowd of followers, John Wick in his suit and I in my wine colored jacket, long since cleaned following Dog's pulling me through the mud and leaves of Central Park one Autumn evening. I still had my scrubs on underneath it and as the Minister started to join us together, I realized in gratitude that if I had not been in the profession that I was I would never have known about, let alone met,  my soon to be husband. My role as veternarian had brought us together, just as the once ailing but now healthy pit bull standing by John's scuffed shoes had also united us.</p><p>"My brethern," the King began. "I take full responsibilities for introducing my good friend, John Wick, here to this shy thing of a veternarian. Without my almost divine righted machinations they both would have been unaware of each other, as we are from those unfortunate residents of New York City with money in the bank and roofs over their heads...but now here they are together, under God, under myself and under all of fucking NEW YORK CITY ABOUT TO BE MARRIED!" he bellowed.</p><p>Once more, the sound echoed throughout the tunnels. Added to it, however were several of his congregation shouting "Amen" at us or curses at the recalled city that had abandoned them.</p><p>"John Wick, do you take this woman, to have and to hold, to honor, cherish and protect so long as you both shall live?" the King asked, studying the assassin he had saved moths before.</p><p>"Yes," John replied for the second time in his life.</p><p>"Well, then you better damn well win this war for us so that ain't too damn short a time," his Highness retorted before turning to me. "And you Erin, do you take this killer to be your lawfully wedded husband and to do the same?"</p><p>"Yes," I answered for the <em>first</em> time in my life.</p><p>The Bowery King shook his head, "Shit, does anyone have a ring?"</p><p>There was a murmur which spread through our wedding guests but nobody actually stepped forward, possessively wanting to keep what they viewed as their own. Dog barked and John gazed down on the canine, specifically at the collar he was wearing. Taking the collar off, the hitman saw the metal loop on it. He removed the ring and resumed his place standing before me.</p><p>"There's supposed to be two," the King remarked.</p><p>"It's okay," I stated when John began to look around for another makeshift ring. "When I was a little girl, I never really knew men wore them anyway. If I didn't trust you, maybe, but what then would be tg6e point? I trust you, John Wick; that <em>is</em> the point. I trust you with my heart."</p><p>My lover was moved. He trusted himself on a completely professional level. But he was not always used to people trusting him with such things as their emotional wellbeing. Helen once,  but she had been a rare angel in his life. Now he was staring at me as if I were one also and that look in his eyes was worth more than a band of gold. He took my soft, fleshy left hand in his and placed the circle at the tip of the ring finger.</p><p>"I'll get you a better one when I come back," John said apologetically.</p><p>"<em>If</em> you come back," the Bowery King replied and it was like he had stabbed me in my heart.</p><p>"<em>When</em> I come back," John Wick restated, looking into my eyes intensely. "That's my first vow to you, Erin. I <em>am</em> coming back. You will be the light that guides me. Just as you brought my heart back to life when I thought it had no beats left to make."</p><p>He slowly moved the ring down my plump finger. "I promise to give you all the love inside of a heart I once feared dead and all the life inside of the body it belongs to, which insisted on staying alive. Looking at you, now I know why."</p><p>Tears were shed openly in front of an audience of the Bowery King's subjects and while some looked as if the words meant very little more to them then spare pennies handed out on the subway, most of them appeared to be touched without expecting to be.</p><p>Only not <em>nearly</em> as much as I was. That was impossible.</p><p>"Do you have anything to say, Vet?"</p><p>My green-gray eyes met with my husband's brown ones. "Only that I love you, I'm yours and that I will wait for you, John Wick. Be it for a second or a million years, I will be here when you come back."</p><p>"GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME," the Bowery King roared. "I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU MAN AND WIFE!"</p><p>Smiles seizing both John and my own's faces, I threw myself into the assassin's arms and we kissed as the sounds of the homeless now surrounded us in boisterous celebration, taking what joy they could now in the face of the war they were set to wage the next day.</p><p>* * *</p><p>The Bowery King "<em>allowed</em>" his secret weapon against the High Table to take his new wife back to her apartment, knowing that the sewer was no place for a one night honeymoon. The first place that John brought me to was not the bedroom, however, but the bathroom; where we had first made love. John started to remove his clothing but I looked at him naughtily, my tongue peeking out from the corner of my mouth, and then took over while he started to help me undress.</p><p>Standing naked in the bathroom, tears started to flood my eyes as happiness but also sorrow over our impending loss struck me painfully hard.</p><p>"Here," my husband said, and I fell into his open arms, painting his naked chest with my tears as he hugged my body to his own, something wet falling upon my hair.</p><p>* * *</p><p>While Dog slept peacefully in the other room, John and I spent the night making love and then falling asleep only to wake up and repeat the action. In truth, the spells of sleep did not last for long because we could not stop ourselves from enjoying each other while we knew we could be blessed to awaken and find the other lying by our side.</p><p>"I won't be able to contact you when it starts," John Wick said after another act of love. "It would be foolish. Not when they'll be looking for leverage to stop us."</p><p>I nuzzled my cheek into his chest. "I'm afraid..."</p><p>"Afraid I won't come back?"</p><p>"No," I replied. "Afraid I'll think this was all a dream without you beside me."</p><p>John Wick lay on his side and took my head in his hands. "Better make it a good one then," he commented, kissing me while he moved his body to hover over mine.</p><p>Eventually his kisses found their way lower to the soft skin on my breasts and I moaned as there was not a space on them left untouched by his lips. His tongue found my hardening nipples and licked them successively and then sucked on them too, making the area between my parting legs burn with heat. My opening was already wet from our repeated comings and John Wick slid in again without effort. Our bodies, united, we greeted the morning with soft, loud moans and kisses and tears from eyes and cries from lips which professed our love and how much the other would be missed.</p><p>* * *</p><p>In the light of dawn, I drove my husband back to the Bowery King's lair. With Dog between us, I started to head towards the tunnel's entrance I'd visited so many times, only for John to stop me by placing his hands on my shoulders and turning me to face him.</p><p>"They'll be gone by now."</p><p>I lowered my head, knowing that John would soon be too and then felt his lips on the top of my head once again. "I love you," he told me for the last time before our separation.</p><p>"I love you too," I said, close to a fit of weeping.</p><p>To stop me, John Wick grabbed my face and kissed me with a fierce passion, packing unknown months' worth into the action to keep himself satisfied during our abstinence. Parting, I felt something being placed into my hand. I didn't need to look down at my palm to know that it was the leash for Dog. As John walked away from me, we were linked by that same leash, that which had initially joined us together, until the assassin reluctantly let it fall from his hand and to the frost covered ground.</p><p>John Wick turned and started to walk away towards the City, not daring to turn back to see me a final time.</p><p>The pit bull made to run towards his master but I quiety whispered, "No," stopping him.</p><p>During the months that followed, I often found myself wondering if the canine knew I had been talking to myself just as much as I had been to him.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Dear Keanu;</p><p>Okay...Another animal story.</p><p>Well, when I was eleven years old, my parents separated and my mom, sister and I moved to the bigger city next door to live with my grandfather. The problem was, we had been raising chickens at that point. Mom had made a pen for them and we were planning on taking them to a nearby farm so we could have them to eat.</p><p>So, there we were in the city still wanting those chickens but terrified by both my dad and his mom, whom he had moved down to the house where he used to share with his family. We soon formulated a plan, however. If Daddy and Granny had one addiction it was The Young and the Restless. Everday at four thirty,  they would sit down and watch that soap. Why, infact, before the separation,  my dad used to go over to my grandmother's at noon so tge6y could watch the Bold and the Beautiful, Y&amp;R's sister show, together.</p><p>Mom, Tara and I then decided to head down to the house around four thirty and collect those chickens! Tara brought her childhood friend, Marlene, whom still lived in the same village as Dad and she was freaking out that he would see her. For some reason, Marlene came upon the bright idea that if she turned her baseball cap backwards, he wouldn't recognize her. :/</p><p>Anyway, we crept down to the village and pulled up to the side of the house. We sneaked out to the spacious backyard where two large picture windows were directly facing us,  giving Dad and Granny a good look if they turned and glanced out of them. Mom knocked over the pen and the chickens, about five of them, went running. There we were in the backyard, frantically chasing scurrying chickens around while inside Daddy and Granny were glued to the tv set, watching to see what Victor Newman was up to.</p><p>We did catch the darn birds too.</p><p>We bid a very hasty retreat and brought them directly to the farmer where he prepared the poultry for us.</p><p>The only problem was that Daddy wasn't one to look after animals too well. The meat from the five chickens amounted to about a ten pack of Chicken McNuggets from McDonald's. I can still remember mom cooking 'em up and thinking, "That's it?" :/</p><p>But it was.</p><p>And that's it for that particular animal story too.</p><p>Much love,<br/>Erin<br/>XO XO<br/>:D &lt;3</p>
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<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>A year without John Wick.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Yay! Another story completed. But I'm really going to miss it. I think it turned out rather sweetly.</p><p>Thanks for reading everyone!</p><p>Heads up, if you follow this series, I might not get an update in tomorrow. I have to walk a half mile to my CPAP provider. Than I gotta walk a half mile back. Sigh. So that created a crimp in my schedule. :/ But if I can manage it, I'll try.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Considering that John Wick had only found his way into my life three short months before, and those three same months had gone by so terribly swiftly, it seemed strange that he made it impossible to return back easily into the life he had never been a part of.</p><p>With the exception of Dog, everything was now back to as it once was.</p><p>I would go to the office and see my various clients performing the same examinations and surgeries that I had before. In that time, many lived and a few tragically did not. I did, as I always had, the best that I could.</p><p>Then I returned to my small apartment after walking my new canine companion and ate supper and often watched a movie before going to sleep to relive a day which might have born a different date but which felt very much the same.</p><p>But John Wick remained in his absense as much as his presence.</p><p>I could not see something without a memory seizing me suddenly, joyfully, painfully.</p><p>"I hope he remembers to change the flea collar," I thought once after a shipment of K9 Advantix II arrived. "I should have reminded him to."</p><p>But John was possibly no longer around the sewers and the Bowery King's army of rodents and their accompanying legions of parasites, I had then realized.</p><p>Once I had entered the familiar tunnels but the awful smell had been the only thing that had remained. There were no vagrants, no homeless and no hitmen to be found. Gone was the matress where John Wick had comforted me once after a Dusky's death and where we had made love. Even the King's throne had been dismantled, I discovered.</p><p>The only relic left was an old Fanta bottle, crushed and broken and I found myself collecting a shard of it and stuffing it in my pocket to be placed by a gold coin on my nightstand.</p><p>The taking of baths were particularly devastating in their ways. I could almost feel his hands upon me, then, his lips on my neck and that hard part of John Wick deep inside. But just as strong was the contrasting knowledge that there was no body behind me and I was alone. Tears would fill my eyes, my head would be lowered and droplets would soon begin to hit the water, causing ripples which spread.</p><p>That was what John Wick had been to my life: A tear drop on the water, causing ripples until it was added to the water, swallowed by the rest, unable to be removed, even though he appeared to be gone.</p><p>* * *</p><p>Near Christmas I found my grief growing to an almost crippling degree. It could have been the first one shared with my husband, but now it was just Dog and I celebrating with Ralphie Parker and his Red Ryder BB Gun. Barbara had invited me to share it with her and David (whom had fallen in love with Dog after their first introduction) but I had declined. </p><p>"Merry Christmas, Erin," Barbara had said, halfway out the door on December the 24th. Then she had suddenly paused and turned around. "Whatever happened to that guy? The good looking one you were giving an examination sans clothing to?"</p><p>It was, of course, something she had been resisting asking for too long. Now, as snow fell on to her red coated shoulder, she gave in to the urge.</p><p>I swallowed back a sob and just smiled and shrugged. "I don't know," I replied and quickly realized it was the truth.</p><p>She looked at me apologetically, sorry that her curiosity had outweighed her tactfulness and then stepped out into a snow which quickly covered her other shoulder. An angel received its wings behind her as the bell rang.</p><p>By the time, I braved the same snowfall, my tears had dried. The snow fell gently around both Dog and myself as we walked slowly to my Beetle in a silent night. Christmas might have been the next day, but with a broken heart it seemed more like some fresh wound waiting to be given. Putting on my gloves, something I had forgotten to do inside the practice, Dog saw the Volkswagen first and began to bark.</p><p>I raised my eyes, one glove on and saw what had earned the pit bull's attention.</p><p><em><strong>MERRY CHRISTMAS, I LOVE YOU</strong></em> had been written in the snow on the hood of my now mostly white car. From the fact that the words had not been too covered over, I knew it must have been freshly made and quickly looked around for any sign of the man I knew whom had written it.</p><p>At the end of the street, under a lamp which gave off an angelic glow, stood a man in a dark suit. He had been standing there watching me and allowed our gaze to lock for a second or two, the snow falling on us like the prayers God could not answer, before he turned and walked away.</p><p>"Merry Christmas, John. I love you too," I whispered, grateful that my prayer had not been included amongst those denied, before making my face wet once more.</p><p>* * *</p><p>"Have you noticed?" Barbara asked me one spring day. She was standing in the doorway of one of the rooms while I examined a fluffy calico persian.</p><p>"Noticed what?" I asked, familiar with my receptionist's way of thinking I would automatically know what she was referring to. Apparently she and her son possessed some incredible telepathic communication abilities that she thought would somehow work on others.</p><p>I hated whenever I had to remind her that I wasn't part of the club.</p><p>"There aren't as many <em>homeless </em>left in New York City."</p><p>My hand went limp on the mouth of the cat, where I had been examining her teeth and mouth. My mind quickly went to my few visits to the subway or even my journeys down the street. Any change I had inside of my pocket or purse had been sitting there for ages and I knew in fear that Barbara was right: there were not as many of the destitute left on the city's cold and dirty streets.</p><p>"It's like one by one they're disappearing," she said in a whisper so low I thought that she could hear my heart pounding far too easily. "What do you think it is? Some disease they aren't telling us about? Maybe government experiments?"</p><p>"You think we should contact the Mayor?" I tried to ask calmly and keep my voice steady as I resumed searching for blueish tinged gums.</p><p>"I think we should make a video and upload it to YouTube," she answered conspiratorially. "We can't trust anybody! Best to get the message out below city hall's noses."</p><p>I laughed, hoping that she bought it. Meanwhile, my head was swimming with the knowledge that in wars there would always be casualties and the dwindling size of one army meant neither defeat nor victory. It was hard to know for sure, as well, how the enemy side was faring when you had never been given a glimpse of them and could not tell whom they were from the rest of the population of New York.</p><p>* * *</p><p>Summer.</p><p>Dog was eagerly always wanting me to take him to the park now. "Good Dog," I'd praise as we played with a frisbee and then I'd walk him some more. </p><p>One sunny day, I was putting the leash back on him when a shadow appeared over me.</p><p>"Nice dog," a man in his forties commented. He was hispanic, a little paunchy and with a thin moustache.</p><p>"Thanks," I replied curtly, hoping not to sound rude but not wanting to be hit on either. The only one allowed to do that was a certain hitman nicknamed after a witch whom lived in Russian woods.</p><p>"You doing okay?" the stranger suddenly asked, not daring to look down at me.</p><p>"Yes," I answered, knowing it was important simply from his tone and averted gaze. "But...I miss someone."</p><p>Tears stung my eyes, though, it was integral I didn't let a single one fall. Tears would be strange and noticed.</p><p>"I'll tell him that. He misses you too," the man stated before walking away.</p><p>* * *</p><p>It seemed like a perfectly normal day in every way.</p><p>The air held that crisp Autumn smell, the leaves on the trees in the park had changed their green uniforms for more brighter eye catching shades and the business at my practice had been keeping me fairly busy. If there was a sharp stab of pain, it was during my walk to the building, remembering that it was close to the anniversary of when I had met John. I couldn't see leaves now without thinking of him picking them off of me, too.</p><p>Just another ripple he had left in my life,  so that I would never forget him.</p><p>Which was <em>impossible</em> anyway.</p><p>It was very close to the end of the workday. Business had slowed down. I had just checked on a poodle named Butty, asleep after a fairly simple operation, when Barbara came to the door. She stared at me in this secret little way and her green eyes sparkled in amusement. "You've got time to see one last patient?"</p><p>"Sure," I said, removing my gloves. "What type of animal is it?" suspecting it must be unusual and the reason for her barely contained smile.</p><p>"I don't know," she said with a large grin. "Maybe you would. He's a very <em>handsome</em> breed. I think you took care of him here once before."</p><p>Another curl of her lips as her eyes danced and went to the examination table where she had caught John and I naked and in each other's arms. </p><p>My heart stopped beating altogether before it began to race.</p><p>I was moving my chubby body past hers, in a speed which almost knocked the poor mother of one down. Entering the waiting room, I stopped as my eyes rested on the man standing in the middle of it,  staring at me in great longing. There was a very happy pit bull by his feet and a small, tired and yet wonderfully peaceful smile on his bearded face.</p><p>Crying,  I ran to John Wick and threw my arms around his neck, holding him tightly in the fear that all it would take was one light fall breeze to send him out of my life, another leaf blown away on the wind.</p><p>"John," I said and we were kissing passionately, the assassin's arms going about my waist and lifting me about a foot in the air.</p><p>"I'm back," he announced, placing me back down on the floor again.</p><p>"For gow long?" I asked, clutching the fabric on his shoulders in fear.</p><p>"For always," he said. "We did it. The Table is dead."</p><p>I started to weep furiously into his suit.</p><p>"The Bowery King is too," he informed and I started to cry even harder, an act which surprised me though I did not know why.</p><p>"But I have Ricco with me," John Wick stated. "Plus a few other friends I collected along the way."</p><p>I looked up at my husband and soon found him pulling me to the door while Dog followed too.</p><p>He opened it and I gasped as I saw what looked like seventy dogs, twenty cats and one rat all waiting at the front of the building. Every one of them looked in need of a bath and some flea treatments and I was laughing hysterically while I turned to look at John, whom was looking for all the world like a six year old boy whom had just brought home a stray he desired to keep.</p><p>"So how about it, Dr. Wick," he asked, smiling at me sheepishly. "Can you handle giving them all a flea bath and then one to a very itchy hitman, as well? Of course, maybe you <em>wouldn't</em> want to do that..."</p><p>Swiftly his unsurety changed to a daring kind of confidence and I grabbed his wrist to see the same old flea collar still around it.</p><p>Smiling brightly, I bit my bottom lip before bursting out into laughter. "Wanna vet, John Wick?" I exclaimed gleefully and threw myself into the now truly retired assassin's waiting arms.</p><p>Dog started to bark in approval as our lips met again, setting off the pack of dogs and the clowder of cats in their own unique chorus, all of which provided us with the noisiest yet most fitting music to kiss to.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Dear Keanu;</p><p>Thinking of walking through the snow, there's this photo of you that always makes me worried for you. You're sitting outside of some place. You're all bundled up in a jacket...but you have no shoes on! So, I stare at it and try to figure the situation out: Is it cold,  since you're wearing your jacket? Or is it hot so you took your shoes off? Is the temperature different from the ground to your middle? </p><p>It perplexes me more than the Mona Lisa's smile that photo. I can't help but worry one of your needs is not being met. </p><p>So, how did you think this turned out? I wish I had another animal story to end off on...</p><p>I used to pull my budgie's tailfeather out. Okay, that's not accurate. I'd never be that intentionally cruel. What I did was hold on to it until it flew away. Then I was left with the pretty feather. Until my mother told me to stop doing it after I showed her it once.</p><p>It was always mating with its bell. One day one of our classmates saw it and was all concerned, thinking it was stuck on the bell. And I already mentioned, I think, how I heard it going at it one Christmas night and mistook it for Santa's sleigh bells. </p><p>Oh, and it pooped on my teacher's daughter's head once while she was looking at videos to rent. At first, she thought she was imagining things until it had the audacity to do it again. </p><p>Bad budgie!</p><p>I still wonder what life would have been like if had I been a vet. But then I wouldn't be writing these so who cares? I mean, in this one I got to give John Wick a physical examination! I would never have gotten that chance in real life. But if you need one, Keanu, I'd be more than happy to practice on you. And practice...and practice...because, from what I hear, Doctors are always practicing. ;D</p><p>But, getting back to choosing being a writer over being a veterinarian, I have no regrets. I love telling stories. I'd never change that. Just like you help telling them in another way. Although you come up with stories and write them extremely well too. </p><p>Maybe someday we can tell one together. </p><p>Much love,<br/>Erin<br/>XO XO<br/>:D &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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